A while ago I had a long-overdue meltdown. It was occasioned by a rude plumber, triggered by the holiday hangover of stress, but it was really an angel in disguise. The Angel of Acceptance hovers near when we are undergoing cleansing tears. “I can’t go on,” we cry out, and the angel monitors our every tear. Perhaps they gather these up and recycle them, give them to hard-hearted souls in need of self-mercy. I like to think so.
The raw reality of our failure to live up to our own standards is humbling, indeed. For those of us walking the path know how little progress we have made. Egos can only take one step forward, two steps back. The house always wins as long as we are living in the Vegas of Vanity.
All vanity and self-importance is welcomed by the house because they have you by the short hairs of the neck. Gurdjieff said that man cannot do. How right he was. The tears we shed are proof of that.
Spiritual students like to see themselves as long-suffering paragons of virtue, misunderstood and under-appreciated. These angels see us as simply going home the hard way. They hold out the lantern of love so that when every last teardrop has fallen, we can rise up and falter on.
The meltdown that I had proved to be a blessing on many different levels. I wish I could schedule them regularly but that is not how it works. Grace is operative even when we are unaware of it. It is there to catch us when we fall.
I hope all of you have an interesting weekend. Watch for signs of grace. They are there. They are there.