The Collapse of Self. . .

Our consciousness first begins in the womb, where there we are intimately connected to our environment.  There is no distinction between we and they.  There is little sense of self and personal identity.  We know no other.  We and the universe are one. . .The mother breath provides our breath.  The mother blood carries nutrition and sustenance invisibly to us, all beyond our awareness.  We live in perfection. . . pleasantly floating. . .feeling no effects of gravity or lack of want.  There is no fear, no hunger, no anger, nothing disrupts or frustrates the total unity of our needs and desires.  We know of no ambition beyond us, until that velvet vault turns suddenly into a velvet vise.  The formerly perfectly nurturing, supporting walls become constricting and painful to the point of crescendo in our rude expulsion from our little metaphorical and privately dedicated garden of Eden.

The separation complete, now gasping in unknown disbelief.  Bright lights, the chill of exposed skin in the sterile coolness of the delivery room air.  Our awareness of self begins to be more completely defined.  Our togetherness was so complete.  Aloneness must now be discovered as a completely alien concept.  In the womb, likened to the image of God with no discernible beginning or end, now we begin on the journey of uncovering our finiteness. . .The larger world begins to be known by our pangs of hunger.  Urges of anguish arise within us, we gasp and cry instinctively because we hurt.  We grasp.  We suckle and the newly found emptiness within replaced with warmth and satisfaction, a temporary return to bliss.  Our awareness of self grows at the boundary point of our needs being expressed and met. . . 

Where formerly seamless unity was the ruling force in our private universe, now an expanding awareness of greater things than our self begin to arise.  We are on the path of growth and awareness as individuals, but the memory of our perfect garden never completely fades from mind.  This aloneness while granting some measure of autonomy and power, is still continually a source of vague dissatisfaction and leads us into a lifelong quest for reunification.

We were created to be unified with God.  Through our sinful ways God was forced to place a barrier between us.  Never again to know the perfect unity, the perfect love, the perfect security that we once had.  We seek and find many temporary and ultimately destructive substitutes for God. . . things that provide a brief season of pseudo happiness. . . drugs. . . sex. . . alcohol. . . money. . . other people. . .

Who can forget the feel of falling in love?  The rediscovery of completeness and unity.  Finding perfection in another person.  The walls of self come tumbling down, the barrier between us and another crumbles. . .Each moment in this time is magical in its beauty.  You only exist to please this unique and preciously rare soul-mate that you have found.  Everything is newly seen through the lenses of your beloved.  Simple acts are profound in the pleasure that they offer.  The sense of self dims, to be replaced by the burning glow of love for another. . .in all the known universe only one love as  yours has ever been known in the history of man. . .but again as all find, this too fades with time.  The season of the honeyed moon so too will pass.  Again boundaries are raised as various differing needs exert themselves.  The perfection of apparent unity is replaced by the reality of the trouble and trials of day to day life.  Selfishness, thoughtlessness, laziness, and basic human differences all contribute to the reality of two distinct individuals, now again resurrected trying to coexist with one another.

Now the lifelong work begins and through huge effort, a more permanent and solid love begins to be constructed. . ., Is it all a meaningless dream?  or are we not in that, given a glimpse of what potentially could be, not with an inherently imperfect person, but in that time of fleeting overpowering and consuming love are not we shown what might be possible by lowering of our drawbridge. . . the lowering of that barrier between us and God?

John 15:1-5  I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.  (2)  Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.  (3)  Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.  (4)  Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.  (5)  I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Live in me and I will live in you with no wall between us. . .No separation, one together in a magical time of love. . .There is no distinction between a vine and a branch.  There is no way to discover at which point the vine ends and the branch begins.  There is no distinction of self between the vine and the branch.  The same nurturing sap flows in the veins of both.  The life giving water of the vine flows upward from the roots to the branches.  The branches send back down the vine and ultimately to the roots, the sugars created in the leaves.  There is no wall of self.  There is unity. . .there is a oneness and harmony of perfect and overpowering love. . . 

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Abide in me and I in you. . .

Bring down the walls of self. . .bring down the barriers between yourself and God. . . do everything you can to destroy your separation from Him. . .seek Him. . .discard yourself. . .and reap the riches of abiding in Him. . .in worship I catch hints of rare beauty. . .faint notes dance softly in the evening breeze. . .the perfume of rare flowers beckons from beyond yonder hill. . .

Song of Solomon 3:1-4  By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.  (2)  I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.  (3)  The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?  (4)  It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.

Song of Solomon 2:1-6  I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys.  (2)  As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.  (3)  As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste.  (4)  He brought me to the banqueting house, and his banner over me was love.  (5)  Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love.  (6)  His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.

I love you my God. . .

Please embrace me. . .

And please I beg, allow me to embrace you. . .

Please help me put aside myself. . .

Please help me join with you and die to myself. . .

Thank you my Lord. . .

Thank you my God. . .

Dave