I started this Blog Post a long time ago (July 2024), but then I got the flu. Today is the first day with minimal fever. But NOW…November 2024, I see this in DRAFTS and will publish it AS IS.
I am starting with humor to avoid a heady argument. Solution-based thinking is ‘problematic.’ ‘The problem with solutions’ is that they require the premise and presence of a problem to solve. OK, I’ll keep my Day Job.
Ironically, problems are the seed of solutions, as in forgiveness solves pain and suffering; without the presence of an offense, forgiveness would never be born. If you’ve heard me speak or read my Blog, you know I point out that forgiveness runs deeper than the offense that requires its presence.
Solutions can be problems in disguise, like a Trojan Horse. Solutions are answers to problems, we hope. But the problem with answers is that they trick us into believing we ‘know’ something. Knowledge is a trickster and a cruel taskmaster. Knowledge has the propensity to create prisons in our minds. We quit learning because we stop thinking and become apathetic. If you think you know the answer, do you ask questions? QUESTION is a Holy Word.
In my first tour of duty in prison, I heard a professor from the Great Courses lecturing on Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. He said Nietzsche was always willing to have the courage of his convictions but found it imperative to have the courage to question his convictions. I took that to the bank and lived by that precept from that day forward. For years, I occasionally tried to find out where Nietzsche said that, but I finally found out by happenstance a couple of days ago. It’s from ‘Human, Only Human.’ But there was a slight point of clarification. Nietzsche believed in having the courage to attack his own convictions. I’ve done that, too, because I was and remain relentlessly willing to reexamine my every belief. I would even question the most cherished beliefs, such as, is there really a God? Despite miracles and many spiritual experiences, I’m always willing to doubt myself because, after all, I am not the great arbiter of the universe. So, COURAGE is a Holy Word.
If Acceptance is the answer to all of my problems today, does it mean that Acceptance is a ‘solution’? I see acceptance as the spirit of the law and not the letter of the law. “Acceptance” is a Holy Word.
Later, I will ask this question again: What examples of Holy Language (strings or Dot Connecting of Holy Words) do you have that help redirect your attention away from a problem dominating your focus?
When I had cancer, one of my mantras was ‘Healthy, healed and whole, body, mind and soul’. I was talking to my body, mind, and soul in an uplifting way, redirecting my attention toward what I hoped for in my life. I did it within a larger framework of doing it under God’s will for my life, a ‘thy will’ not mine sort of a thing, but also with the idea that my life serves to help others fall in love with the entirety of their lives.
This sentence might be hard to decipher, but I hope you’ll go for it patiently. My passing away (dying to self/selfishness/sin as a process) to pain and problems is in the THY WILL BE DONE paradigm, which is powerful Holy Words or Holy Language that allows (not ‘forces’) the ‘my’ part to disappear. I ask that this cup pass from me, not as I will, but as Thy Will. Thy Will Be Done is Holy Language.
So far, I’ve identified ‘Thy Will’ and its shadow ‘Acceptance’ as Holy Language, but all of our experiences that we surrender to God become HOLY. In God’s Economy, nothing is wasted.
Now, here's a list for you to take a look at. I hope you’ll make a functional list of your own that you have used or are still using to transmute problems. The list might be like creating a Gratitude List. See the pattern here? Gratitude is a Holy Word.
During the Dark Night of the Soul, I was in deep spiritual pain and beauty, and I would pray for help and breakthroughs, always in the surrender mode of thy will. Be careful what you pray for. Yes, I had countless breakthroughs. Breakthroughs going deeper into new pains and relief from old paradigms and difficulties came through breaking deeper into lessons. That’s what the Dark Night does.
Solutions are as much of a box as are problems. Not having a box to think outside of is freeing. But even ‘freeing’ requires something to be free of. We are condemned to be free.
Jesus said that the truth will set us free, and also said that Satan is the father of all lies and that there is no truth in him. I see Satan as EGO (Edging God Out). Humans seem to be the only species that can talk about things that are not real, things that do not exist, and even speak about lies (the deliberate absence of truth). If there is a real Satan (how can he be real if there is no truth in him?), then the only thing that probably drives him crazy is that no matter how hard he tries, through God, all things are beautified. Forgive your enemies. Love one another. You know…Holy Language stuff.
Without eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, duality, consider the idea that God has no opposites. With God, there is no difficulty in performing one miracle or another. The comparative mind, separation consciousness, is hell itself. C.S. Lewis said that the door to hell is opened from the inside.
We cast ourselves out of the Garden of Eden but are returning Home. Purity of Heart is to Will ONE thing. It’s also the title of a book by Søren Kierkegaard.
Why did Jesus tell us to ask that God’s Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven if we couldn’t experience Heaven in the here and now? If the eye looks at light, Jesus said our whole body would be filled with light. Isn’t THAT Heaven on Earth? Doesn’t that make us Kingdom People, as in being as little children of God? This paragraph is rife with paradox, but only in terms of ‘worldly’ thinking. Truth without worldly paradox is dead, just like faith without works is dead. FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) knocked on the door. Faith answered. No one was there.
What examples of Holy Language