The Smorgasbord

             This fall like the autumn leaves and the bursting clouds, a shower of images came upon me, metaphors with a message playing like a video.  Not my gift.  Mine is auditory, hence the title of my blog, “whispers of mystery.”  My whispers periodically entered during these scenes, acting as a narrator with only a few words.  They also titled them: Artificial Sweetener, Backstroke Swimmers, The Smorgasbord, The Bumblebee and the Hawk, and the Laser Beam.  A perfect complement for Thanksgiving, with its own smorgasbord feast, is The Smorgasbord.  

First, a little context.  These visions came like my whispers, unexpected, off my radar, and interrupting the silly chatter of my own mind with its complaints, worries, and petty preoccupations.  Unlike my own preoccupations, these whispers are not petty, nor complaining, nor judgmental, yet instead, profound, clever, witty, teasing, playful with puns I never would have thought of, and they are much smarter than I am.  Their voice is gentle, quiet, and plural.  Their pronoun is they because I hear them like a choir so perfectly in tune to the same note that I can’t distinguish between any two voices, though I hear them plural, as a chorus. 

The human self and the eternal self

            The Smorgasbord builds on my own musings over the dual nature within the human condition, which I call the “human self” and the “eternal self.”  I came to this understanding by observing it first within myself and then by seeing it in the description of Adam’s creation in Genesis 2:7, from both the dust of the earth (which I call the human self) and the breath of God (the eternal self).  

            The former pastor Ethan of my blogged book, “Just like Eve," explains it in Headshaking Lot of Change.  He laments the current Christian tradition “is missing the gems of wisdom by interpreting as literal history stories that were designed to reveal the mysteries of the soul," and he grieves that “Augustine missed this very important creation of our opposing parts within and claimed instead that men were born into ‘Original Sin.’ His hypothesis has been followed for millennia, yet the Bible presents us as humans in duality, just like Adam was.’” 

            Ethan continues by noting this duality runs through the Bible, first as metaphors like Cain and Abel, Jacob and Esau, Israel and Ishmael, and Joseph and his brothers, then further developed by Paul in Romans as the struggle within of the self that doesn’t do what it wants to do and does do what it doesn’t want.  Then he notes the duality is further developed in sayings of Jesus in the extra-canonical Gospel of Thomas.  (For the full dialogue, click here.) 

            All mystical traditions carry an expression of the dual nature of humans, whether it is the Hindu Shiva and Shakti, the Buddhist natural and transforming natures, the Taoist yin and yang, and so forth.  Leading psychologists like Carl Jung have also discovered these natures within the human psyche.  Here in The Smorgasbord, they appear with the names I call them, the human self and the eternal self.

The Smorgasbord

             Just as my whispers come to me, by surprise, interrupting my petty mind chatter, earlier this month, this unexpected vision arrived.

             Before me stood a grand buffet table, a great smorgasbord of delights, each in miniature form, like toy cars and tiny doll houses.  Laid upon it were furniture and food, clothing and computers, silver rings and cell phones, toys and treasures, an RV, a boat, a house, a Ford F-110, and a Tesla, all in miniature.  So were our modern distractions: video games, social media pages, YouTube channels, TikTok and Etsy promos, and a host of infomercials.

             As I watched, more and more treasures descended from the ceiling upon the smorgasbord.  Soon the table was cluttered so tight none of the delights could anymore be seen in their distinct form.  My whispers pointed and uttered: 

These are the human self’s free choices.

             The vision then presented obstructions to the delights, obstacles that looked like boulders, shown as preventing the onlooker from accessing the treasures.  These were shown in the form of bills marked “LATE” in red lettering, cut up credit cards with low credit scores pinned to them, guns and cannonballs, hospital beds and prescription drugs, crying children, and demanding family members.  Also shown were urgent emails from bosses, next to the never-replied-to emails of the employees to their bosses warning of the same matter.

             I felt my angels smirking when I came upon the display of the emails.  As they frequently do, they were teasing me with this very personal image.  I lingered on it, recalling my own repeated emails to my supervisors who never replied, then made the matter I had warned them of my problem. 

            The vision then zoomed in to a close-up of a few of the treasures, a toy car, athletic shoes, a chocolate bar, and a specialty coffee drink with plenty of the whipped cream I love.  I was then shown a few, sparse spaces between some items on the smorgasbord.  My whispers spoke once more: 

            The finest treasures are in the spaces between the delights.

           These spaces had been wider, before modern life had deposited too many delights and distractions.  Now they were few, sparse, and shallow.  However, I next saw the spaces begin to glow with light, as if a candle had been lit within them.  These spaces were shallower, but brighter.  Pointing to these spaces, my angels whispered once more: 

These are the eternal self’s options of free will.

             Free choice for the human self.  Free will for the eternal self.  Interesting.  As I said at the start, my whispers are smarter than me.  They do this often.  They whisper a tantalizing mystery, and then they leave.  They don’t explain it.  They leave it to me to reflect on, ponder, or, as I like to say, percolate over.

             As I percolated over this image, I perceived free choices are limited.  They may be plentiful, like the smorgasbord, but they are nonetheless finite.  But free will is limitless. 

            I also reflected the more choices given to the human self, the less likely is the human to look beyond the smorgasbord to the limitless choices of the eternal self.  These human choices of free choice also impede the human from creating within himself an opening to meet the eternal self. 

            It is in the spaces between the human self’s choices where the eternal self resides.  As the choices multiply, the spaces shrink, and they may keep shrinking until they are nearly invisible.           

            Today, our choices are so vast the spaces for the eternal self to be found are so slim.  Yet – and here is the miracle of our time – our divine forces are brightening those slim spaces.  There may be fewer, shallower spaces for us to enter to meet the eternal self, but they are brighter, calling to us, wooing us, drawing us into them.

 The Metaphors of Life

Since The Smorgasbord was one of a series of visions, each showing what I call a metaphor of life, I’ll begin a Metaphors of Life series at the start of 2025.  I hope you’ll look out for these in the new year and until then, enjoy your Thanksgiving smorgasbord.  Be sure to look for those spaces between the delights for the finest treasures!

 

© 2024 by Karina.  All rights reserved.  Use only with permission and/or a link to this blog post.

I used to think

             I used to think life is random, coincidence, spotted with agonies to put up with it, as stoics.  Not wired as a stoic, I was told to quit whining.  If stoicism was not to be wired into me, perhaps it could be commanded into me.  But that never worked. 

I used to think the divine force stars in the Bible as an entity called “God,” also stoic, who made us and walked away, except from his favorites.  I read this “God” to be like a teacher with pets.  This God has favorites, and when his favorites squabble with their neighbors, this God does not break up the fight, does not train them to live in harmony together, does not serve as a neutral arbitrator.  No, this God, joins the fight, fights for his favorites, and even commands them to kill their neighbors.  From this, I used to think the divine force is petty, unfair, untrustworthy, and even cruel, an upside-down Robin Hood who gives to the greedy and steals from the kind. 

I used to think I must take life into my own hands.  If the divine is untrustworthy, life is random, and I’m not a stoic, then calling out to the heavens is futile and I will take charge.  I consulted experts, and many agreed life is random, but it has patterns, trends, and statistical probabilities.  If I study the patterns and probabilities and control this mostly random, yet statistically probable life, I can reduce my chances of suffering.  But suffering still came, often in the form of ever-evolving, yet ever present disturbances of mental health.  I sought the doctors for help, and they prescribed medications, which sometimes made me feel worse. 

            I used to think my belief in the God who picks favorites and abandons everyone else and my mental health disturbances were separate.  I used to think they have nothing in common. 

            Finally, I challenged my mind, my thoughts, and my belief that calling to the heavens is futile.  I cried to the heavens and screamed for help. 

            Then, miracles from the heavens poured as a grand waterfall of showers upon me.  My little children, both of them together, saw angels, with my older, four, describing them and telling me where they were, and my younger, one-and-a-half, nodding, pointing to the same place, and clapping in delight.  I began to hear the angels, called them my whispers of mystery, and over the course of many years, they transformed my mind and my thoughts.  They whispered their mysteries to me and then confirmed them through synchronicities, scriptures, the natural world, and surprise encounters with sages who understood.  They introduced me to the divine forces in the heavenly realms and in the world within, deep into the deepest waters of my heart.  

            They unveiled a divine force altogether different and astonishing in its Order and Harmony.  They revealed the unity of all things, and they unfolded the veil of my illusions.  Through the signs in the natural world, synchronicities, miracles, and their whispers of mystery, they showed me life is not random.  They whispered, if I watch these signs and search within, into the deepest waters of my heart, where, unlike in the surface waters of my heart, the winds and tides and storms are distant, and where the waters are calm and constant – from there, they will guide me in protection.  They whispered to be patient, to let go, to surrender, and to watch for their signs.  And they led me out of my terrors, my anxieties, my mental health disturbances.  They led me on a path that counters my culture, counters my religion, and counters what I used to think. 

            The set me free.  No more medications.  No more anxiety.  Healing for me came not from drugs.  It came from from reframing the divine, reframing life, reframing myself, and discovering my divine guidance from the deepest waters of my heart.

© 2024 by karina.  All rights reserved.  Please use only with permission and/or a link to this blog post.