Living on the Cliff

Watch television shows or movies from the 1950’s and 1960’s and you might see someone jump off a cliff into an ocean or a pond. At that time ago it was popular to show men and boys jumping off La Quebrada cliff into the Pacific at Acapulco. That’s one hundred thirty-one feet down.

Jumping into the shower is enough for me.

I have known some men and women who felt they had to live their whole lives on an intellectual cliff. They had to be the smartest person in every room they entered. Not that their intelligence was ever called into question. Their egos, however, left me wondering how smart they really were.

Then there are the men and women I’ve met whose families literally could not afford for them to even finish grade school. I found it more difficult to question them than the ego-inflated theoretical intellectuals. They had been through the school of hard knocks. I did envy how intelligent and well-read most were. I wished I were more like them, for all the education I had.

My education did not give me their humility or their modesty. Those men and women taught me by their example. I do not have to be a brilliant intellectual. In fact, it’s better if I didn’t bother with the silly pretense. They taught me basics like it’s awfully stupid to leave on a light when I don’t need it. I waste electricity, valuable energy. I waste money.

It doesn’t take a towering intellectual to see that it takes humility and modesty to deal with the tough facts of life we face.

How is living on the edge — being the intellectual on the cliff — going to pay your bills?

That is precisely where spirituality has come into my life. I have learned that God is fine with me if I don’t live in a mansion or own an Alfa Romeo or Lamborghini. As a boy I thought that if James Bond could drive a 1964 Aston Martin DB5, why not Mark Janssen?

The answer was clear. Because this is real life, that’s why.

In real life every person on earth has the opportunity to plug into their inner God. Tuning into God is a lot more important than driving a sports car or living a fabulous life style.

The difference?

Tuning into God, slowing down to listen, takes a lot more effort than being the smartest kid in the world who lives with one foot off the cliff. It takes work. Dogged determination is required. We need the ability to take our heads out of the clouds and keep our feet on the ground. It may quite well be the toughest lesson any of us ever learns.

The gift of sitting back to observe the generations after me makes my life an absolute wonder. I don’t have to be them. I’ve already lived through being a child and a teen. Those agonizing years of trying to figure out what to do with my life! Whether or not to go to college. What university to go to. What to do with my life.

It’s an incredible gift to not be in my twenties and thirties. To not struggle to make it to the next rung on the ladder. To not have to feel like I’m supposed to make other people happy. It’s a gift for me to observe others live those years so well.

Frankly, the happiest times in all of my life has been when I disconnected from the confusion of the world outside of me. Having conversations with the angels pulled out all the stress of being around other humans. Humans have the unremitting capacity to confuse me. Admittedly, that is one reason I have spent most of my life with the angels.

Being surrounded by angels and spirits can cause all sorts of problems when dealing with humans. You might consider holding a conversation an ordinary part of life. I am fascinated by it. It is little short of a miracle observing or participating in a discussion with another person. It is a gift. Not all of us are very good at knowing how to converse with someone. We’re so used to conversations that occur entirely without words that putting thoughts into sentences can be challenging.

Some of us are used to living in the spiritual center. Our lives are filled with activities with spirits. Talking with them. Working with them. Learning from them.

Being with spirits.

We may appear to be in the outer limits of real life. It’s all perspective. Most of what is called real life has never struck me as being either real or terribly lively.

Look at the pictures coming from the Webb telescope. Those stars and galaxies and eons beyond, for so many of us who are your family, friends and neighbors, is where our real lives are lived.

Earth is very nice and all. But never limit yourself to mere human existence. Merely thinking your way through situations in life.

Be spirited.

Dare to find your spiritual way through life.