Be

I do not know how to just be.  I know only to 'do.'  This is how I have always measured myself.  This is what almost drove me once to slice through the epidermis, dermis, trachea, jugulars, and carotids of my own neck at one point many years ago.  I thought I had too much guilt to allow myself to live any longer.  Now I live with tenfold more guilt than I had then.  The sins that almost drove me to suicide then were only against myself, but now they were against an innocent, lovely woman that I hurt, giving me tenfold more reasons in that old paradigm why I should die.  Since then, I no longer think that such a solution would provide any sort of redemption or relief to me or anyone else.  Thank God.

I still measure myself in terms of my accomplishments, not in terms of how God sees me, as I am, not as I do.  To teach me how to think differently, I have started taking for myself and God regular times throughout the day where I stop whatever activity I may be doing at the moment and simply meditate, do nothing, pray, listen, become aware, become unattached, go through my ki breathing techniques.  I have not reached this step yet, but I plan to start seriously observing the Sabbath, and dedicate a day entirely to "doing nothing," meaning, stopping from the work that the world considers to be 'of value' or as an 'accomplishment' and giving the time to God and whatever He wants me to do with him and for myself.  I need to learn how to just be with God, not to do for God as I have tried to do my whole life.  Doing things for God is not enough and it is a fast way to destroy one's concept of unconditional love, replacing it with a ever-raising standard that must be jumped over and over in order to maintain that love.

I need to do this because right now I feel worthless, cold, abandoned, unloved, and leftover.  God is the only One I have left in this moment and maybe really at all.  I am not used to the solitude yet that it will take in order to continue practicing the "Daily Office" of isolating myself in complete silence and stillness, just with God.  I have already gotten over the first big hurdle that I thought would be much bigger in starting this practice, namely, I do not consider these times as a waste of time, to just exist with God.  I do not feel unproductive or that I should be getting something done.  God has shown me that the world will go on spinning on its crooked axis if I am not there to hold it up.  My world will not fall apart if I am not constantly tending to it.  If I want to be like God, then I must imitate what He does.  After God was done with creation, He rested and delighted in His creation.  Likewise, God commands me to rest in the 10 commandments, so I must learn to not only rest, but also to delight in God's creation and the things He has done.