"Were All the World a Paradise of Ease,
'Twere Easy Then to Live in Peace."
___ Thomas Traherne, "Centuries"
When we first plunge into the full flood of response to our spiritual path, the world seems a wonderful place. Our ecstasy is often so persuasive that we enter a period of convert fervor and rapidly become bores, singing the delights of our chosen way for the benefit of any friends (or total strangers) unfortunate enough to meet us.
For anyone descending from the spiritual high-ground, the next phase is the most challenging to our chosen way. All the delights, joys, and insights that we enjoy at the peak suddenly run up against all the lethargies, doldrums, and seemingly meaningless interludes of daily life. If our prayer life has been connective, it becomes prone to a strange interference in this phase; if our meditations have been colorful, they suddenly start receiving black-and-white transmission; if our spiritual allies have favored us with the intimate interviews, they suddenly become amazingly elusive. No one and nothing seems to be on the same wavelength anymore.
The individual who finds himself in such a predicament needs to look at each new challenge to his new found spiritual peace as a practical opportunity to manifest some of his theoretical notions.
It is not solely in the otherworld or in paradise that spirituality is to be implemented, but in the world in which we live. If our spirituality cannot supply us with resourceful encouragement, then it is very shallowly rooted in us. It is in the challenges to our spiritual peace that we find the solutions. Like a parched tree that has to send out deeper roots to sources of water, we also have to send our spiritual roots deeper in search of help. To live our sacred text, to implement our holy philosophy, there is no better place than here and now.
"Apply your spiritual wisdom to the most challenging daily trail."
[From: "The Celtic Spirit" by Caitlin Matthews]
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