Consistency
Look around. See what different groups and different people have to say about consistency. What they consider to be truly pure and right. Their versions of the desirable way to do something or the way this thing or that is supposed to be.
I just finished a conversation with a friend. In the course of the conversation, we discovered that we have a shared name. His name came from one language and mine from another, but they are the same name. He was upset that the definition of our name as given on various internet websites was incorrect. He is an expert in the root language of our name.
I walked him through the iterations from the root language (Hebrew) to Old Greek followed by Old Latin to middle and modern English. His name is from the root language, Hebrew. Mine is modern English. Over the last two thousand years and across the miles the meaning has been bent, twisted and changed to meet the desires of those who changed it. Various nationalities set our name to mean what they wanted it to mean to meet their circumstances at fixed points in time.
He was, quite correctly, I thought, upset at how the word’s original meaning and thus, our name, has been lost. It has been supplanted with something not even similar.
The consistency of the meaning of the word has been corrupted.
Words and languages are corrupted as a word is adapted from one language to another.
Concepts and ideas are corrupted by the different meanings of words.
They are changed to suit our wants and desires. As we change ideas to our comfort, we lose track of what was originally important. We throw away what we decide is no longer comfortable, no longer fits our current desires. We are inconsistent.
If we’re inconsistent in our words, in what we say, how can we be consistent in our thoughts and ideas? How do we manage to consistently live out our spirituality? In an effort to broaden our understanding of Spirit do we become lost in theories and suppositions?
I can say I see angels and spirits, but if I didn’t actually see them, what is the point? Why say I do? That would be a lie. It would be more harmful to me than to anybody subjected to my errant nonsense. Lucky me, I actually do get to see them.
In being able to see angels and spirits, it’s extremely necessary to keep a sense of humor.
A friend sent me a text message picture of a woman walking into a room to see a ghost standing in front of a mirror admiring a hat it was trying on. The quotation was to the effect “The relief you feel when you realise the weird house noises are ghosts and not things you can’t afford to fix.”
Isn’t that the truth? Would that all ghosts were that friendly.
There are things about ourselves that we can fix. In monetary terms, it can cost us. Any time we make a positive spiritual change we have to face the reality that we may be met with hard choices. We can remain the same or change. How can we become more the person we wish to be if we refuse to grow?
When we want more, bigger and better in the physical world, we look at what it takes to get it. How much for the new car? The vacation? Sending the kids to the schools of our choice? It costs. If we want those things badly enough, we sacrifice something in some other part of our life to get it. We work longer hours. Go without the little treats in life. Do without something in one area of our life to get something else in another area.
It’s the same with spirituality.
We may have to give up doing whatever it takes to buy our expensive toys if we want the time for spiritual growth. Not just for the quiet things it takes to grow, like prayer and meditation, but for the active things we need to do. Being kind to someone who grates on our nerves. Donating not just our money but our time to worthy causes. Helping with a blood drive. Dropping off food at a food pantry. Driving carefully and not being rude to other drivers who upset us.
It’s not just doing these things once and thinking we’re done. We are never done. There is always more to do.
There are people I know who have the uncanny ability to open their mouths, say things I find totally contrary to standards of moral behavior and act as if they were absolutely on the ball. I don’t know if I’s helping my spirituality at all, but I do know that when I am silent my blood pressure is less likely to boil. No matter how badly I want to flip the switch that silences them. Oddly enough, the angels have never told me that God wants those people silenced. I do. Good heavens, I do.
So what?
To be consistent in my spirituality, I must often be silent. Against my human desires. Strangely, whenever I restrain my mouth and pen, the world continues to progress quite well.
