Experiment in Introspection

I did a little time of sitting before God quietly to think through some dilemmas.

Here's what I found.  It's kind of abstract, but I'm trying to describe how I thought through the disconnected ideas, to try in prayer to hear what God might be saying.  This is a lot like what happens when you try to hear a prophetic word, after which you have to match it with scripture.  But when you're in the moment of listening, it's like following a dream.  Prayer, meditation and scripture study all go back and forth.  Scientific thought and philosophy is like this sometimes too.

I tried to start out with asking what has been going on with music in my life.  In the time of prayer and quietness, I saw connections.  One thing leads to another.  There's a natural branching of ideas led to friendships and human connections.  As I quieted myself and just tried to trust God to lead me to make connections, I saw these things.  There would be a dense network that centered on related, repeating patters, with peers, intimate relations, comics, schoolwork and reading, playing guitar and other music, having an aesthetic appreciation of music of different kinds, and trying out different projects, trying to do different things, pursuant to taking various initiatives.

I was expecting to find moments of shame that have locked me in or kept me down, but nothing of shame came to the surface.  Quite unexpectedly to me.

What did emerge, on reflection, is that the primary feature of all the positive emotional aspects of life experiences is the exercise of my will to bring something about.  Good things would happen in the trail of taking initiative, even very small good things in the course of life, as well as very large cumulative projects taking years and much support from other people.






I'm reminded of the parable of the Talents.  The master gives the servant a supply of talents, and says in so many words, I'm trusting you with these--go out there and see what you can do with them!  Try this, try that, try the other thing.  Just launch out in good faith, you'll see what works, there's no shame in trying thing.  You're smart, you'll figure it out.  Just, go do something.

The emergent observation, the apparent result of this experiment in quietness, is that it doesn't really matter what the subject is (repeating: whether it is developing peer relationships, or intimate relationships, or involvement with comics at any level, involvement with music at any level, or the execution of projects at any level); but that what decisively does matter is the exercise of my will to make something happen.  And the clarity and unmixed attention and effort that I bring to the purpose to which I am attending, whatever that purpose might be; that clarity, attention and effect will yield (one may expect, even plan on) success in life, and happiness in life, and success at my purpose.  I will accomplish the thing that I'm trying to do, one might expect, and there will be a lot of satisfaction and happiness both for me and people attached to me.

I was trying to get the experience of "quietness before God" down into words while I still remembered.  So if it's a difficult to understand, that makes sense.  If you're interested, I'll discuss these things in a personal conversation, if you ask.  Thanks so much.