Strange resonances

Today, I was channel surfing ("relaxing," we delude ourselves by calling it) and came upon the Lord of the Rings. Frodo was struggling alone up Sauron's Road to the Sammath Naur on Mount Doom, and he fell down, completely exhausted.

And he had a vision, of Galadriel holding her hand out to him; and she said, "This task is appointed for you, Frodo."

This task is appointed for you. Did I think she was speaking to me? Did I think God was speaking to me, through the good offices of a Peter Jackson movie? Heavens, no.

But I heard it. Very deeply.

And I got up, and did some things about the house I've been "meaning" to do for days. And haven't. And yet, I did them.

One of the things I wanted to do involved a step ladder. I made it up to the bottom step; clearly, that was not a good idea. I got off (safely) and put the step ladder away. And yet--and this is the most important part--I didn't "wig out" at having been "defeated."

This has been getting to me a lot, over the past month. Over my life, it has been easy to say goodbye to things that I was done with. But now, I'm constantly confronted with "Do I really have to say goodbye to this?" to all sorts of things I always thought were so... simple. Things that I was not at all "done with." Except they're not simple, any more, and being slammed to the ground yesterday as I tried to do something which formerly would have been more than simple enough, was certainly a wake-up call for being "done with" some things.

Saying "I'll just say 'goodbye for now' to keep the door open" is a delusion. Worse: it's a lie. It's not saying goodbye at all.

There's no reason, of course, that one can't say "goodbye" but then "welcome back," if such opportunity presents itself. "Goodbye forever" is a much of a non-release as "goodbye for now;" you're attaching to the loss, rather than the thing you're pretending to say farewell to.

But this is the task appointed for me.

Another resonance: A question asked by a friend of another friend, was related to me: "When will he start walking again?" The person telling me this story suggested that perhaps the real question was "When will he get rid of this M.S.?"

Yeah, you may laugh. But that's a very "Science of Mind" question. It's not just Science of Minders that would ask such things; an acupuncturist used to ask her patients, "Why did you give yourself this disease?"

Science of Mind is, in some ways, like medicine-friendly Christian Science. If you have a headache, meditate. If it won't go away, take some aspirin--what are you, stupid? Try harder next time, but take for now the road that you need to take for now.

A Science of Mind saying is, "As a man thinks, so is he." Clearly, I need to change my thinking. Lord, I've been saying that for months--years--the entirety of this blog. Also clearly, if it were that easy, I'd have done it by now.

But this is the task appointed to me. And it's time to change.

And I'm going to go write some music. I can't use step ladders. I can't take heavy things out of my car. I'm really not sure how much longer I'll be in a walker, rather than a push-it-with-your-arms wheelchair, I'm starting to consider getting one of those. I need to learn how to ask for help; also something quite new to the Independent Adventurer me. But operate a keyboard and a mouse--that, I can do.

So that, I'll do.

What an odd thing to be puzzled by: to find saying "I can only do what I can do" to be limiting, and uncomfortable. Especially since before I started walking the M.S. highway, I was only able to do what I could do.