Life keeps coming at us. We have to work recovery into bringing the best we have to offer to meet the next challenge. This is true multitasking, operating on different levels of living at the same time. We have to recover while meeting the demands of life. To do this, we have to know how we recover, what we need to assist recovery, and we have to be conscious of nurturing ourselves in sustaining ways.
Recovery includes feeling what we feel AND remembering the life that is still OUR life to live, and knowing we have what we need, what it takes. Recovery is finding our way back to ourselves and living out of our connection with who we are within the context and circumstances of our lives. Recovery is regaining our sense of integrity and living out of our sense of what is integral with who we are within the context and circumstances of our lives.
Those of us who are off track, either because we have been knocked off track, or because we have simply drifted away from what is integral, have to get back on track, those of us who are on track have to stay on track. That's all there is to it.
The three watchwords for doing this, for getting on track and staying there, are: Integrity, Integrity, Integrity. Integrity connects us with the core of who we are. When we live with integrity, we live with authenticity. What we say is important IS important and our lives reflect its value. Integrity is alignment with the values that are core values and are truly worthy of our allegiance and loyalty.
We know when we are at-one with ourselves, when we are living in ways that are integral with our core. This is integrity. We have to live out of our sense of what is right for us, of what is appropriate for us in the situation "as it arises." This is our truth. Truth is not static reality apart from us. We create truth as we form our lives with integrity, doing what is truth for us, living lives that are aligned with values that connect us to the core of who we are.
Truth is about how it is with us, within and without. It is who we are and what our situation in life is. We are to live in ways that relate the who to the what. Relating who we are to what our situation in life is, the who to the what, is the work of soul, the work of life. When we do it well, we have life and have it abundantly, we are alive in the deepest sense of the word. We are alive to the extent that we live with integrity—being who we are--within the circumstances of our lives.
There is only one path to LIFE: Living with integrity, living to be who we are, to express who we are, within the context and circumstances of our lives. One of the indicators of living with integrity, aligned with who we are, is the degree of spontaneity we exhibit in our lives. How free are we to live without thinking how we should live? That's the test that tells the tale!
The obsession with doing it right is the neurotic need to be pleasing. Who must be pleased? What would happen if they are not pleased? Who do we think is watching, observing, grading? Whose life is it? Who gets to say how we live our life? We cannot live with integrity, with spontaneity, AND be pleasing to our parents, our children, our spouses, our partners, our friends, or the Lord God Almighty.
We also cannot live with integrity and spontaneity if we are concerned about making a profit, about having something to show for having lived. Don't have to have anything to show for it! What would you do for itself alone, with no reward, recognition, fame, fortune, glory, attached? We have to have more of those things in our lives.
We can’t live with integrity and spontaneity when we are concerned about doing our duty. Doing our duty untracks us, gets us off the beam. Social duty, or Christian duty, are authoritative should’s distracting us from the inner voice calling us to live aligned with our own integrity.
No one can give us our mission, our destiny, our life. No one can tell us what the beam is for us. We find our own path. It's about the work, stupid! The work is never about the money. The work is IT. Finding and doing the work that is ours to do is life itself.
There is a beam with our name on it, a track our life is made to run on. Our task is to find the beam, the track, get on it, stay there. This is to live with integrity. We keep thinking there is more to it than living the life that is our life to live, doing the work that is ours to do. NOT!
We are to live our life, OUR life, not frantically seeking satisfaction, but focused on bringing forth what is ours to give, loving who we are. We lose the way looking for it. We set aside the best seeking something better. Sin is not knowing when we are well off, or what's important.
Why work when you don't have to, ask the masses who think it is about not working, who think it is about lolling around, sipping sodas. It's about The Work! We live to quit working, to get away from work, when life is found in doing the work—the true work that is ours to do. Getting this wrong is the essence of sin, you know.
Sin is missing the mark, missing the point, thinking the wrong things are important, not getting it. Just try to talk someone into getting it who doesn’t get it! Jesus couldn’t do it, neither can we! But, Jesus didn’t let that stop him. He led the Revolution anyway, even though no one got it at the time.
The Revolution is led by those who know what is truly important, who know what they need to do to live with integrity, and do it. The Revolution is led by those who live out of their own integrity and let nature take its course. Living like this, in the service of what is truly important, what counts, matters, makes a difference, is subversive, insurrectionist, seditionist in the fullest sense. And, we get there by listening to ourselves, aligning ourselves with core values, and living in ways that are integral with that which is deepest, best, and truest about us. Living in this way is living well, and it requires us to live lives that are slower, quieter, simpler, more reflective and aware than the lives the culture encourages. May it be so for us all!
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