Relating
Two brief answers
In life there is pain and there is suffering. I'm not the first to notice this. It is not unreasonable when upon reflection one asks 'why' and what is the meaning of it all. After exploring many roads and avenues one might conclude there is a maker, a God. After further investigation one might envision the maker as more than just a transcendental ether. God might, just might have characteristics that we share and might be like us and more. If this is the case it would not be out of the question to experiment in relating to this higher up. We might be driven to this by our own discomfort. As such, I say somewhat self-consciously relating to God, even talking to God, or appealing to the maker, is an avenue to be explored. There is a place to evolve spiritually on subtle levels on one level. There is a place to relate to the maker directly on another. Even though many nuts do it, it doesn’t make it invalid. Nuts also eat and so do we. As such, I encourage a person to try it, to experiment even if dubious. That is what this life is for, to find out by trying and experiencing. If you're reading this and taking it in, it might be an opening for you to explore.
This long introduction sets the table for two recent interactions with the above. They were brief and happened the first thing in the morning. The first is a little personal but still has to be shared. Upon awakening I felt a deep ache in the pit of my stomach. With the morning's clarity I realized the ache came from fear, deep fear. Often there is no time to indulge something like this, but that morning I didn't run or get busy. I just felt it and laid myself open for an answer. The answer from above was simple, very simple. “The ache in my stomach serves as motivation for me to keep going.” In other words I need to push on to relieve the ache due to fear.
The second interaction had to do with my art. I had been working on a drawing for over 3 months and it seemed to have promise. When I scanned it and printed it out with darker values the drawing looked choppy and didn't hold. I didn't know what to do. I was surprised because a lot of work went into it. Maybe a slight tinkering with the lighting might help, maybe a slight something else, but I could not see what was needed. So at the end of my rope and feeling very much defeated I said to God, “I don't have an answer as to how to make this work.” Again, it being early morning and my being still somewhat slow, the answer was succinct. It was “You don't have to have an answer.”
Somehow that honesty relieved me. I was exonerated. Some things were beyond my scope, beyond my fixing or knowledge. Not everything could be fixed. Straining and trying to solve my drawing was getting me nowhere. Honesty about my predicament was what brought relief.