The
Contract
A
Visitation in the Well of Souls
What I am about to share with you is
as true as it is unbelievable. I can’t
tell you how I know what I know, but only that I know it. It’s as if memories of things long repressed
have come back to me, or what has come back to me has come back to me in dreams,
or in fragments of dreams assembled by my unconscious mind like jigsaw puzzle
pieces to create a portrait of the nature of our being, the nature of our
bittersweet reality in this life. I
know, I know, this may sound as absurd to you as it does to me, as if any of us
can be expected to believe that a university professor can teach quantum
physics and calculus to ground hogs.
Yet, that is what I am saying.
Not that exactly, but something like that. Something mysterious, surreal, unexplainable,
unbelievable, and true. We are fearfully
and wonderfully made. Draw closer,
listen closely, and please resist the temptation to think me insane. Open your mind. This is how it happens with each and every
human soul, as the Creator of life, the Architect and Designer of everything, the
Deity, comes to each of us, one by one, in the well of souls. This is how it happened with me. This is how it happened with you. Come with me. Be a fly on the wall of the well of souls.
“Yes, yes! I accept your terms!” shouted the tiny soul
to whom the Creator was speaking.
“Not so
fast little soul embryo,” said the Creator, “I haven’t finished spelling out my
terms. There is no fine print in the
proposal I am making to you. I am
declaring everything to you straight out.
I will only accept your fully informed consent. For you to be able to give me that, you will
need some additional information.”
“Slow down little seedling-of-a-soul,”
said the Creator. “The beautiful feelings that you are so desperately eager to
experience are not the only feelings included in the gift of life that I am
preparing to offer you. There are other
feelings that you will also have many occasions to experience, feelings that
are anything but beautiful. The gift of
life includes within itself a multitude of occasions to experience feelings
that can send you plummeting to depths of anguish that you also can’t imagine,
and most certainly don’t want to imagine, including but not limited to feelings
of sadness, sorrow, turmoil, anxiety, fear, panic, dread, frustration, boredom,
emptiness, loneliness, confusion, deprivation, disillusionment, alienation,
anger, rage, guilt, shame, self-contempt, self-loathing, self-condemnation,
hopelessness and despair.”
“No, no! I don’t accept your terms!” declared little
seedling-of-a-soul. “I only accept your original terms! I don’t accept this second set of terms!”
“Tiny bundle-of-soul-potential,”
said the Creator, “this gift of life that I am offering to you is a package
deal. I can’t give you the gift of life,
while limiting your experiences and feelings to only those that you might
imagine enjoying, while excluding all unpleasantness, all experiences that
might make you feel uncomfortable, all painful feelings that you may wish to
avoid experiencing.”
“Why?” asked tiny
bundle-of-soul-potential. “You are God! You
are the Creator and Giver of life! There
is nothing impossible for you! You can
do anything you choose to do! Why can’t
you give me only that which is good and beautiful, and protect me from all that
is bad and ugly?”
“Little bundle-of-raw-material-for-a-soul,” said the Creator, “because that is not the nature of reality. That is not the nature of life. How would you develop strength without facing resistance? Without resistance, adversity, struggle, your soul would surely atrophy and die of failure to thrive. Without conscious access to a full spectrum of experiences and feelings, you would never be fully alive. You would be nothing more than an anvil sinking to the bottom of the ocean, or a helium balloon, untethered, floating into the stratosphere to be lost in nothingness. You would have no moral compass, no sense of direction, disoriented, utterly lost, with no way to find your way home. What is joy without sorrow? How would you even know that you were feeling joy except for the way in which the feeling of joy distinguishes itself from the feeling of sorrow? Do you honestly believe that you would even feel joy as joy, if you were incapable of feeling sorrow? A thing is only what it is in distinction from other things that are different from it. The fabric of reality, of life itself, is weaved with countless distinct strands, all noticeably different from each other. Life is variety, not sameness. How would you possibly know if you were feeling happy, except that you also know what it is to feel sad? How would you know if you were experiencing feelings of satisfaction, contentment, and gratitude, without also experiencing feelings of disappointment, frustration and deprivation? How could you possibly feel feelings of peace and serenity and feel them as peace and serenity, without also experiencing feelings of turmoil, anxiety, fear, panic, or dread? How would you know if you were feeling fulfilled, if you were incapable of feeling empty? How would you know love, affection and attachment to another, if you were unable to experience feelings of loss, grief, loneliness or estrangement? How would you even recognize the feeling of hope as hope, except that you have known what despair feels like? How would you be able to see the light, except against the backdrop of darkness? Just as colors are unrecognizable except for the ways in which they distinguish themselves, intermingle with, blend and contrast with other colors, singular feeling states would be unrecognizable as well. Feelings only exist in the context of other feelings, each of them distinct from the other, each of them giving meaning to the other. Life is variety, variety is life. Everything else is mindless, meaningless, heartless, soulless, loveless, lifeless automation. I am a living, thinking, feeling, loving God who desires relationships with the living beings that I create in my image. I desire living, thinking, feeling beings with whom I can have loving relationships, and who can have loving relationships with each other. I am not interested in the mass manufacture of lifeless machines that do only as they have been programmed. With life comes the capacity to experience the heights of euphoria and ecstasy, and the depths of agony and despair, each of which gives context and meaning to the other. Tiny soul-to-be, do you accept the terms of my proposal?”
“I can say yes,” said tiny
soul-to-be, “but what if I can’t do it?
What if I don’t have what it takes?”
“No one, of their own accord, has
what it takes, little soul DNA,” said the Creator. “There is no one who has not been in breach of
contract. All have at some point fallen
down, fallen short, turned away. There
is no one who has always kept all of my terms.
No, not one. Just know this: I am a loving, merciful, gracious God. By my mercy and grace, you will have what it
takes to live on my terms. Just as I am
installing within your flesh, as standard equipment, an immune system which
will do much to defend you against bacteria, viruses and rogue cells which may
threaten physical harm to you, I am installing within your psyche, as standard
equipment, some potentially life-preserving psychological defenses to help you
protect and defend yourself against painful experiences and feelings which you
may at times experience as painful beyond your ability to bear. I am giving you the capacity to repress
memories of traumatic experiences, to bury them as if they didn’t even happen;
and to suppress the excruciatingly painful feelings stemming from these
traumatic experiences, to push them into the back of your mind so they won’t
have the power to overwhelm you. I am
giving you the capacity to compartmentalize what you cannot yet bear to face,
to place unbearable experiences and emotions in quarantine and isolate them from
the rest of your daily life so they won’t have the power to engulf you. I am giving you the ability to
intellectualize and rationalize your traumatic injuries and the painful
emotions stemming from them, to conduct the mental gymnastics necessary to neutralize
your painful emotions when they threaten to break you. I am giving you the creative and imaginative
ability to dissociate yourself from painful traumatic experiences and memories
and feelings that you can neither endure nor escape so they won’t have the
power to push you to a point of no return.
I am a loving, merciful and gracious God. I am offering you the gift of life, and when
life becomes too painful to bear, I am giving you the capacity to defend and
protect yourself so you can survive.”
“Little almost-but-not-yet-a-soul,”
said the Creator, “you need only open your eyes to see. A word of caution to you about the
utilization of your psychological defenses.
They are only stop-gap remedies.
None of them are designed to last.
The overutilization of these defenses will prove futile, because they
will falter, crumble under the stresses and strains of living, and over time
each and every one of them will surely fail you. The painful memories and feelings that you have
been protecting yourself against will then flood over you and threaten to
overwhelm you and destroy you. All you
will have left in the end is a bundle of defenses which will have become unto
you like an autoimmune disorder. Your
defenses will then attack the healthiest and most vulnerable and precious parts
of you and strangle the life from your soul.
The secret to using your
defenses, is to not use them too much.
Life will afford you many opportunities to learn, that you, even in the
midst of your most painful feelings, uncertainties, and self-doubts, are
stronger and more resilient than your defenses. Your vulnerability is more
powerful than all of your defenses combined.
It is only as you courageously make yourself vulnerable that you will be
able to truly give and receive love.
This is what it is to be alive.
This is what it is to be a soul.
Living souls do not sleepwalk their way through life. Living souls are wide awake to themselves and
others. Living souls feel
everything. Living souls come to love
themselves as if they are of infinite worth, because they are. Living souls come to feel their worth. Living souls grow to transcend themselves, to
feel their way into the feelings and needs of other souls, where they are moved
with love and compassion for the souls of others. Living souls even have the capacity to feel
ME living within them. I have been where
you will be. I have experienced what you
will experience. I have felt what you
will feel. I will be with you
always. I will always give you what it
takes to live on my terms. Tiny
soul-apprentice, do you accept the terms of my proposal?”
“Yes,” answered tiny
soul-apprentice, “with the assurance of your love, mercy and grace.”
“Then we have a deal,” said the
Creator. “Almost time for you to be
born.”
The Creator stepped closer to tiny
soul soon-to-be-born, looked directly into the eyes of tiny soul’s heart. “There is something else that you need to
know,” said the Creator. “You will have no conscious memory of our deal.”
“What?” asked tiny soul
soon-to-be-born. “How will I know what I need to know to survive, to live?”
“Little
bundle-of-everything-you-need-to-be-a-soul, are you under the impression that
you are some pre-fabricated, ready-made soul, whole and complete, here in this
well?” asked the Creator. “You are
merely a bundle-of-raw-material-for-a-soul.
Life itself is a soul-making endeavor.
I am giving you a lifetime to make of yourself a soul. It would be meaningless to install a finished
and refined wise old soul in you before you are even born. This is not some factory assembly line. You are being given both the privilege and
“But I want to remember!” said little
bundle of everything needed to be a soul.
“I want to remember you! I want
to remember everything you have taught me!
I want to remember the deal we have made here!”
“Precious speck of dust soon-to-be-animated-with-my-breath,”
said the Creator, “you will have an unconscious awareness of everything that
has transpired between us, our encounter, our conversation, your realizations,
your informed consent, our deal. It will
all return to you, bit by bit, as discovery after discovery, as you live your
life. There will be times when a
discovery will feel strangely familiar to you, as if you have always known what
you have just discovered. That will be
you remembering what you have always known to be true. Call it déjà vu. Call it instinct. Call it intuition. It will feel like coming home.”
“But I am home now!” cried the
precious speck of dust soon to be animated with the breath of the Creator. “I am home here with you! I don’t want to leave you!”
“Tiny spark of my soul, you will
never have to leave me,” said the Creator.
“I have been where you will be. I
have experienced what you will experience.
I have felt what you will feel. I
will be with you always. I will never
leave nor forsake you. In a moment, you
will be born. For a few fleeting
seconds, you will feel like you are dying, like you are all alone, and all you
will be able to do is cry. Suddenly you
will feel yourself breathe. Breathe
in. Breathe out. Open your eyes. Look and see.
Listen and hear. Notice what
happens next. You will be held and
nourished by one of my incarnations. She
who cradled you in her womb will cradle you in her arms. Look at her.
You will see my face in her face.
In the mirror of her eyes, you will come to see your worth. In her touch you will feel my touch. Your brain is already hardwired to her
voice. Listen to her. You will hear these words which have been
spoken in every language, spoken in languages beyond words, spoken by mortals
and angels. You need only listen to hear
these words which have been ringing through the ages and which will ring
through the ages of your lifetime through my many incarnations starting with
she who gives you birth. Listen to
her. Her words are my words, from
everlasting to everlasting: I love
you. I love you. I love you.”
The Creator breathed the breath of
life. “Time to be born.”
Todd
Matson
Todd Matson is a North Carolina Licensed
Marriage and Family Therapist. His poems, “All Diagnoses and Degrees
Aside,” “When the Sheep Cry Wolf,” “Method to the Madness,” and “Pastor-Parish
Relations” have been published in The Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling,”
and he has written lyrics for songs recorded by number of contemporary
Christian music artists, including “Forever,” by the Gaither Vocal Band;
“Seasons of My Soul,” by Brent Lamb; and “Heartsound,” by Connie Scott.
He also cowrote the lyrics for “When I Found You,” with contemporary Christian
music artist, poet and author, Gloria Gaither.
not a fan of religious thoughts but this one is most interesting and well written.
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