Lotus of the Heart > Path of Spirit > Blessed Exhaustion

 
 

Be a Valley

Hope for Exhausting Times

May 22, 2025


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I feel like I'm a failure, though I'm devoted to my daily spiritual practice. No matter how hard I try, I can't get it right.


Very good.


Why?


Grace arises in our incapacity to succeed. That's success. The ego wants success, spirit wants surrender. Waters flow downward into the valley, not upward into the peaks. Be a valley.


What's left?


Life, you, everything, as before, but different somehow.


How different?


I can't give you my eyes. In time, you'll see what you already see for yourself.


*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."

* * *


We invent ourselves that we might know who we are and what we are to be. But the consistency we seek in these inventions can't be maintained against the fabulous inconsistency of actuality. Sensing this, we clutch at cherished constants ever more urgently. The builder of the house of ego can never rest, for [it] is ever at work to control outcome and limit alternatives. [Its] structure makes its appeal to our longing for the familiar and the safe, but in the end, [it] delivers only diminishment. I am weary of maintenance.


*Lin Jensen. Bad Dog!: A Memoir of Love, Beauty, and Redemption in Dark Places.

* * *


Coming back upon Jensen's words, "I am weary of maintenance," I was gladdened to revisit the "Ah ha!" felt at that first reading. Why the relief? Why would one feel joy in acknowledging failure to arrange one's life ~ as though one could have a my life ~ in one little, neat package ~ safe and sound, as many say? Why the pleasant feeling at such failure to do so?

* * *


Exhaustion... lit., "being drained out".

* * *


I feel, this day, the day of this writing,
the closeness of exhaustion,
like sweat hugging the skin.
I feel like a bucket, drinking glass, cup, cloud
drained and being drained out.
I slowly feel into this, beyond its threatening borders
ignoring the caution 'beware! entering enemy territory'
ignoring the ominous sense 'keep out'
ignoring the warning 'intruders will be prosecuted'
and approach and allow myself to be approached, and see
nothing to fear, no foe, only friend.
I am here, open-hearted, thankful for this nearness.
I have crossed this border many times, you too, and possibly
you too are with me here now:
if so, welcome, thankful to share this blessed space with you.


We can
relax together
smile together
cry together
trust together
feel what is asking to be felt together
and receive here the joy of being reminded
life is for us, not against us,
Grace welcomes us and our vulnerability as the soil
in which it plants the seeds of immaculate love.
Grace leads us here, so we can become more compassionate and caring
for others who find themselves here also.
Here, we need be nothing or become something,
we can be weak and find that in that weakness
is our strength.

* * *


*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2025

 

Lotus of the Heart > Path of Spirit > Blessed Exhaustion

©Brian Wilcox 2025