Fall from grace

When you walk every day on a virtuous path it is insanely disorienting to fall off of it. Sometimes you catch yourself just as you’re about to step away from the trail and can easily get back on, but oftentimes you do not know when, where, why or how you got lost… just that you are lost and you have no clue how to get back.

Usually, I am able to simply be aware of my breath, get into my body and find a state of presence. It is in this state that I am able to see through the trees of fear, deception and worry clearly. I can quickly navigate through the darkness and back into the light and sometimes my razor sharp vision is activated so quickly that whilst feeling miles away from safety I somehow plant my feet back onto the path within seconds.

But other times, it does not work like that at all. This happened to me recently. I was in a very important moment in my life and I needed my discernment, my clarity and my peace in order to navigate the situation correctly, but I was like a war hero without her horse. The war raged on around me and arrows flung towards me from every angle and no matter how fast I ran I couldn’t catch up with the mare who knew the way out. It’s this feeling like you know what you’re reaching for, but it is just out of reach. It’s horrible, almost like you’re drowning.

I am not entirely sure why this happens. Being on the path of virtue is like walking through the darkness with a big bright light. It is so scary when that light seems to go totally dim or burn out completely. While the light is still on you can see each step, you are certain of where you are even if you do not know where you’re going and all evil doers shrink away from the blinding flame. When you’re in the darkness you may very well still be on the path, but evil taunts you from every side. Where I normally can exist in a completely thoughtless state navigating only by flame, the darkness conjures up thoughts and ruminations. It makes you think you can somehow logically find your way back, but often you can’t. You just get more and more lost, more deeply ensnared and oftentimes injured.

I am still unsure of what to do in those moments. I think the answer is nothing at all, but sometimes life still pushes you forward and so you feel as though you are flailing about blindly, limbs crashing into structures every which way all the while having no clue if the movements you are making are leading you back to righteousness.

There is a bible verse that states that God uses everything for good… even things that are seemingly evil. In those moments of blind terror I often tell myself that if I am unable to find my lantern of peace that maybe I am not meant to have it. I try to rest easy in that and to find the perfection in even the darkness, but this is so hard to do. It is terrifying. In the light all of the terrors, worries and fears are drawn away. In the darkness it feels as though they arrive ever closer, they are able to harm and humble and in all honesty… it hurts.

Sometimes I wonder if it is some sort of punishment and then this makes me feel badly about myself and my life. How can I be longing, desiring, and reaching for good and only good and yet my reaching hands aren’t grasped as I plummet deeper and deeper into a scary abyss that only harms me?

It is something that my mind cannot understand. It is almost as if God is saying, “you are so good and pure and yet look at you… look at all of these imperfections still… look at these fears, these attachments these worries… FACE THEM!” I want to always remain in the light where they dissipate easily like shadows, but eliminating a shadow does nothing to uproot the actual casting thing.

Maybe some evils can only be fought in the dark, in our humanness rather than in our divinity. As the plant grows, photosynthesizing in the light its roots continue to push evermore deeply into the soil. We are both the flower and the rooting material clasping the Earth itself. We cannot grow stronger towards the sun without also pushing downward into the Earth. This process is uncomfortable and awful, but it is what life and beauty is all about.

I think the key is to remove the shame, the guilt and the part of us all that knows we can do better and be better, but is aware that we are not yet that. What is life without the action of continuous growth? Even in our old age we continue to grow in wisdom, in gray hairs and in number of friends who have made their way to the grave.

The path of virtue and spiritual union with something greater is a beautiful, albeit ugly one at times and a lot of the ugliest parts of the process can’t be seen from the outside. So in the light of it all I have learned to just be easy on myself, to be patient with who I am in this moment and to do my best to extend that grace upon others. Grace isn’t what the path of virtue is made of… it is the demeanor within which we choose to treat ourselves in both the shadows and the light.