Spiritual Defeat

I want to write about spiritual defeat and how unavoidable it is. No one wants it. Everyone tries to escape it. You see, we call it surrender, but defeat is also an applicable term. I have been thrown into the fire innumerable times. I know the acrid smell and the salty tears that try to dowse the flames. I am no Joan of Arc.

These days the joy school of nonduality is at its zenith. People subscribe in droves. They want it; they really, really want it. Who doesn’t? Some come to it by a lucky throw of the genetic dice. Then what you see is an attractive display of a big shiny smile that may or may not be real.

Some of us are born with the dice loaded against us. We have genes that lead us into depression or anxiety rather than joy. We do what we can but bad things keep happening in our inner world to keep our outer world in a bit of mess. Some get quite disastrous.

I am getting off the subject. I said I wanted to write about spiritual defeat. Leonard Cohen does this the best. He speaks of “your invincible defeat” in his song, Boogie Street. Christ is here to defeat our old ways of being in the world. He doesn’t much like it that we have more Facebook Friends than the one friend we need the most.

I think Jesus on Twitter is hilarious. It is high comic relief. But that is not enough. I want real relief. I want to be defeated so I can end the inner suffering or at least not resist it so heartily.

I am in the fire right now. Crying. Praying. Wishing I was a better person. Wishing I could wave a magic wand of words and heal myself. I have healed others. Why not myself?

I have been told I give myself away too easily so I am not posting as much. I am sweltering in the heat of this June fire. The Deliverer is busy helping other customers. See, I have to work some irony in so that we can see that everything the ego does is melodramatic.

Someone is unhappy because I don’t always reply to comments on my blog or on Facebook. I have no defense nor do I need one. There are lots of people out there who do that and do it better than I. I have enough fires to put out without rushing to be a volunteer firefighter.

The flames are licking at my feet, which are wearing new running shoes. Ouch, ouch, ouch.

Vicki Woodyard

7 Comments

  1. Oh I do understand feeling “spiritually defeated.” I’m feeling it quite frequently lately, although may not always write about it. But I appreciate your candor – and humor! To me it feels like I am being emptied, and not by choice – more like gutted. I wonder too sometimes if it will ever end…

    “The joy school of non-duality” – love it! Makes me smile. 🙂 I’ve attended there 🙂 – flunked out. I didn’t get those genes evidently. Wasn’t able to use the “correct language”, was always being “corrected” by the “word police” – telling me my “pain” was just my story. Although I do like Jeff Foster, as he seems to have a Heart.

    Love your header – lovely colors…

    Burn baby burn 🙂 LOL

    Reply

    1. I am so happy that some people understand where I am coming from. Yes, gutted and I am not sure it ever ends. Ask Johnny Cash. There was a man. I flunked because one side of the opposite doesn’t work for me. And yes, I like Jeff too. I was saying what he is saying now long before he said it, and now he is saying it, too. We both write poetry and prose about spirituality.

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