by Ross Bishop
We create safe and nurturing environments to help children grow and learn. We go to great lengths to create places that are both physically and emotionally safe. We create sandboxes.
In those safe places, children can learn the basics of life. They learn about themselves and how to deal with others. Empires in the sandbox are acquired and lost, toys are shared or not and no one gets hurt. The thing about sandboxes is that nothing is permanent. Tomorrow will always be another day.
The Creator has made a great sandbox for us called “life.” In this sandbox, we have opportunities to work out the dilemmas presented by our fears and learn about others and ourselves without eternal consequence. Just like the play of children in their sandboxes, none of the things you deal with here on Earth are eternal, except for the development of your soul.
We inject a lofty importance into the events that happen here. They make us feel significant in a universe that has laws but no values. The events of your life have no ultimate meaning. All the fights, wars, joys, stresses, illnesses and all the good and bad things you hold on to, will dissipate someday. All that you believe about life, about yourself and others, will also pass away. Those who come after you will sweep aside what you were and what you believed. If you were really famous, they might name a school or a bridge after you, but that is about it. What will remain is the love you have shared. What you take with you is your spiritual growth.
On a larger scale, the joys and struggles of each generation are routinely leveled by the one that comes after it. Just as in the sandbox, the new kids may choose to use the castles others have built or tear them down. When I grew up, racial differences were a pretty big deal. Today when I have the opportunity to talk to young people, if the subject of race comes up, they look at me like they don’t know what I am talking about. That was yesterday’s issue.
Your emotions and beliefs are real. They exist to motivate your learning. You are part of the God consciousness and it is not possible for you to be unlovable, undeserving, unworthy, imperfect or any of the other things you believe about yourself. Today it is possible for you to feel fear. But your emotions and beliefs are like the sand in the sandbox. They will disappear at the first puff of wind. They are not eternal.
At the core of every human being is compassion. People’s natural compassion and the need to live it can be denied for a time, but not forever. Ultimately natural forces overwhelm repression, whether it is internal to the person or external in the culture.
This yearning is very powerful. It will eventually push us closer to establishing God’s kingdom on earth or, to put it another way, to return to Eden. It may seem odd, but the emptiness, longing and alienation people feel today will ultimately prove to be beneficial because their pain will drive them to create something more real, i.e. love for themselves and each other.
Think for a moment about the unhappiness or emptiness in your own life. That is the sand of irritation. That sand will rub and chafe against all your “bad” choices until you can’t stand them any longer, and then you will make fundamental changes. And in doing so, you will have moved closer to the truth. And like an oyster, you will create a pearl out of your aggravation. When enough people do that, the whole society changes.
(excerpted from Healing The Shadow by Ross Bishop)
