How to Lose Your Soul Part VII

Footprintless

As one prone to provoke my own personal apocalypses, I think it better that I describe rather than prescribe the mysteries and missives of the Inner World. What I lack in authority might be offset with my familiarity with a Soul’s destruction. I have no expertise, but rather an intimate knowledge with ruination—a firsthand accounting of the manifold strategies I’ve employed to wage war against the World Within…but hopefully also of the Pearls of Priceless Promises that at last led me back away from the Pit.

Lostness is a place. I languished there for 40 years of Nights. But it is a place that can—and should—be mapped….Hence I write to you, dear reader.

I’m good at being a goner….Don’t go where I’ve went. Please.

There is a geography of the Inner World…and though your topography…climate…ecology…and prevailing weather patterns may differ from mine, there is, nonetheless, common features to which we may “compare notes.” The most prevalent, yet counter intuitive feature of our inward landscape is the lack of footprints.

Soul is not stupid. If you never visit Her, She will quickly figure out She’s on her own.  Here—the first signposts of disaster will appear…for you will find yourself reacting to Outer World events in ways you don’t understand…even against your Will. And others will notice.

Whenever a situation evokes inordinate…excessive… undue emotions from you—something ancient is going on. It isn’t about the Now.

There are hidden layers in the strata of the Inner World that only reveal themselves during Inner Earthquakes…when the fault lines get jarred…and upward from our innermost being erupts continent-shifting feelings to which we were priorly unaware…or suppressed…or denied…or fled.

Sometimes the fissures burst so wide that monsters escape…and like lonely malnourished giants—stomp forth to sabotage the Heart and Mind with implacable demands and accusations. Sometimes the Body, too, will contract mysterious maladies to which there seems no medical cause… trembling, sleeplessness, panic, paranoia, breakdown. I find that restlessness is a good indicator of an inner monster prowling. How about you?

One monster, Rage, is never about the present. It is about geology…deep buried things…things that Mind has forgotten but Soul remembers.  And it may take a wise archaeologist to excavate it. A current circumstance of frustration or disappointment may trigger it…but it isn’t the cause.

Here’s what I’ve found—anger is about the present; rage is about the past. When a person rages, he is not responding to just the current situation…but against all the times—dormant deep in their Inner World—when he’s felt wronged and powerless. The monster hates being powerless. So it surges upward…then outward upon others.

You want to know a secret? Grief is the same way….It, too, can be monstrous. When sadness gives way to inexplicable waves of woe that overwhelm you…it isn’t just the present you are feeling. It can be the sum of all sadness…eras worth of childhood, adolescent, young adult sorrow…cresting together to form a Gargantuan Grief…far beyond the scope of the present moment.

There once was a man full of monsters…who “ Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always shrieking and screaming and beating and bruising and cutting himself with stones,” (Mark 5:5). Who knows what torments he endured as a child?…an adolescent?…a young adult? He hated himself! And while he raged and grieved…invisible evil personages delighted to join the sadistic fray…helping to pinch and prod him toward the Pit….That is—until the Hero arrived…the Princely Knight of Soul Sufferers.  What a conversation they must have had! Jesus saw the man amid the monsters…and loved him…deeply. And Jesus sailed across a sea to speak with him.

Jesus isn’t scared of your monsters.

He also isn’t interested in tormenting you. The enemy already does that. You might do a good job of that yourself. But you must let him “walk your shores”…frequent your vales…touch your strata. There is a landscape that is inscape. Tell Him all…but also be still and let Him uncover.

Recovery is uncovery.

You can do this in whatever graveyard you may find yourself.

Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me! Then shall I be blameless,
and I shall be innocent and clear of great transgression.

Pslam 19:13

Counsel in the heart of man is like deep water;
but a man of understanding will draw it out.

Proverbs 20:5

Copyright 2013

Did you miss Robin’s previous post? Click here to read How to Lose Your Soul – Part VI