Jigsaw

I will share one idea that, as far as I know, is singular to me. (meaning I have never read, heard, or seen the metaphor before) Imagine a snowflake in comparison to snow. In this context, know that science claims there has never been two snowflakes exactly alike. Ever! Since the beginning of time, wherever it has snowed, in all the snowstorms that have ever occurred, each snowflake has been unique. Inconceivable, right? That's what God is like.

Further, if one observes a snowflake, you could watch it land and not make the declaration, "snow."  Even if there were a dozen snowflakes on your front lawn, you wouldn't necessarily say, "snow." But when hundreds and thousands of snowflakes amass, then you confidently claim, "there is snow on the ground." That's what God is like.

Understand, in and of yourself, you are just an aspect of God, like a snowflake is an aspect of snow. You no more equate to being God as a snowflake equates to being snow. Yet, there is no snow without snowflakes. That's what God is like.

When you think in terms of me (snowflake) rather than we (snow) your perception is skewed. This is narcissism. Narcissism allows no room for God. It is the single snowflake declaring it is SNOW! This misperception then leads to mis-takes; as in the phrase, "take two," because you have fouled up the first scene. In this analogy, the director (God) is ever patient with you blowing a scene or misreading your lines. He knows, eventually, you will get it right. That's what God is like.

So, to recap, you are wonderfully unique. You are a miracle of singularity. As important is the understanding that the person beside you is as marvelously constructed as you are. To proclaim you are more than you are (snow) is a denial of that which you truly are. (snowflake) This is self-abnegation. It is at cross-purpose to why you exist. You are here to manifest an aspect of God. You are an important piece of an intricate puzzle. Not the puzzle, a piece. But the puzzle is incomplete without you. That's what you are like.

La Vida es Sueno

The following excerpt is from a lecture by James Russell Lowell given at the Working Men's College in London. (circa 1885) All emphasis is mine.

"There is a moral in Don Quixote, and a very profound one, whether Cervantes consciously put it there or not, and it is this: that whoever quarrels with the Nature of Things, wittingly or unwittingly, is certain to get the worst of it. The great difficulty lies in finding out what the Nature of things really and perdurably is, and the great wisdom, after we have made this discovery, or persuaded ourselves we have made it, is in accommodating our lives and actions to it as best we may or can."

I would wish you the best of it, not the worst. That is the intent of G-G-G. To 'accommodate our lives and actions' is to perceive Life as a gift. To be grateful is to employ a spiritual alchemy where we circumvent the cynicism and nihilism currently infecting the West. God is 'finding out what the Nature of things really and perdurably (permanently) is.' This is how we influence life. This is how the dreamer awakens.

Faithless

The truth is that my work--I was going to say my mission--is to shatter the faith of men here, there, and everywhere, faith in affirmation, faith in negation, and faith in abstention in faith, and this for the sake of faith in faith itself; it is to war against all those who submit, whether it be to Catholicism, or to rationalism, or to agnosticism; it is to make all men live the life of inquietude and passionate desire.

~Miguel de Unamuno