The Shattered Vessels

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Long ago, I remember talking to a BW friend of mine. We were discussing BW but she could not and would not accept that they have a wonderful role to play in life and in God's plan. Nothing doing.

Another time, I realized the distortion and the promotion of negative news that the media liked to do in regards not only to Haiti in particular, but to all black African countries in general.

"disaster pornography" someone coined that phrase.

I could go on. But it seems the reason a positive slant on anything black can not be accepted is because somehow the vessels in the mind to hold this type of info have been shattered.

Even conspiracy theorists sound absurd (to me). Though I do believe that its that evil side of Esau (ESE) that's behind most horrendous crimes to humanity --and that could be viewed as a conspiracy theory too I guess-- I have a hard time hearing others' theory on the matter.

Vessels.

Its like trying to teach something abstract to a toddler. Most toddlers simply don't have the capacity to process that sort of information. That is not quite a proper analogy because I think we as adults did (?) at one time have the capacity to hear all sorts of information and process them -without our eyes glazing over. In other words, adult have or had this capacity to process and weigh complex information, but there are elements who wish to snuff out that process in people.

I remember when I was a child and I did something wrong, my parents would be so upset with me. I really thought they hated me. When I got older I understood that (mature) people can be angry about something without hating the subject completely and utterly with no redemption possible.

I remember when I was a child I thought good was good and bad was bad. I didn't understand that there could be a mixture. That a person could be 80% good and 20% bad for example. That people can have a bad side, but still be mostly good.

I remember when I was a child I did not realize that a show of kindness could be some one not helping. A show of strength could be not responding heatedly to something.

When we are young, we have very simple vessels. A mental bin for "good" and a mental bin for "bad" and a mental bin for "strength", "beauty", etc. And some bins are not even developed yet.

At a certain point in our adolescence these bins "shatter". What we thought was, wasn't completely; what we thought was for sure, becomes dependent on other factors. Now we need to reshape our vessels, our mental bins so that we can hold more mature and realistic thoughts.

Most adults have done this or are in the process. But there is one last bin that is the hardest to repair. But before we get into that let's examine how these bins work.

Each bin feeds the other one. We take our wisdom, understanding and the resulting knowledge and use it to fill our mental bins with what we believe x is. What we put in our bins, decides how we act. Now at a certain point we understand things differently and need to use new vessels, our new capacity of understanding, to dictate how we act.

All the previous bins are from our understanding of the wisdoms of the world. Basically all our mental bins are fed by our knowledge, what we know. The last, and most difficult bin to refabricate from the "shattering" is called +the vessel of "kingship", the vessels that holds our mission in this world, the vessel that explains to us our value, our worth and our goodness. And that is because somewhere along the line we are still receiving a false wisdom from somewhere.

What is that false message? How can we get rid of it? And whats the true message?

The vessel of kingship is known as a feminine vessel whereas all the others are known as masculine ones. It is the part that processes info (impregnation) and based on that info decides what we put out (birth)to the world. (the other vessels only receives information based on our knowledge.) Because it is "feminine", it deals with thing "femininely." The inner intelligence of things (what's the reason behind x? What the beauty of y? How does z make me feel?) is what it seeks. The problem is that feminine-ness is not well received! The false message is that there is no good value in feminine things. Femininity has gotten reduced to hormones, submission, and hysteria.

Pick up the Bible and read it. We get the masculine side of things. How many men begat how many sons. What a man did. But if and when we begin to open up see with acceptance the "inner" messages of the book, the female side of the stories, then we begin to truly understand things, everything in its true fullness.

Things associated with femininity: beauty, inner reasonings and teachings, rulership, emotion, spirit, the heart, the moon, women.

How do we get rid of that false message? If we are willing to go into that realm of thinking, it would mean calling into question what people just assume to be true. This process would probably be marked by alot of realizations that things don't add up, and asking very basic questions that most people gloss over, like how can a loving God do such and such what would be the real reason for x, considering God is a Loving God, can a person be completely bad with no redeeming value? Can a whole group? What the inner beauty in such and such? What the wisdom found in thus? Things that people tend to take for granted and not really think about deeply. Only then can we complete all the vessels that have been shattered and finally once and for all repair the "kingship" vessel.

With this "kingship" vessel, the mental bin that allows us to feel empowered, to be kingly (queenly? lol) towards the world's creation, and with a role to play and mission to fulfill on this earth; with this ability to see the inner beauty in all of God's creation, then we can finally, but finally appreciate all his creation. The is the true message. That everything that God created has beauty and a function in this world. Including me, BW, and you!

After Divestment : Week 2; Restraint & Strength

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So onwards and upwards, we keep going towards self improvement. I won't even hope to have time to blog about it so this will be it. I didn't get to week one which was about kindness, but we are already on week 2 so lets begin there. (hopefully I can back track later).

One thing many people do after Passover,(as I've stated before in a previous post) we arrange ourselves to merit past recent miracles and position ourselves to receive more. This week is a look at Gevurah --restraint and strength, and taking.

How much is too much? How much is too little?

Gevurah is represented by the left hand. It stands for holding back and for being strong. Its like a red light warning us of poison or danger ahead or a stop sign. Gevurah personified was Isaac. At times I wonder, was it because of Abraham's great lovingkindness that Isaac became almost opposite? Anyway, Isaac was so restraining on himself that he would re-open only the wells that Abraham had made previously. Very rarely does he create a new well. He tried to follow in his father's footstep quite meticulously. Even dealing with almost the same problems as Abraham (going into Egypt, dealing with someone who wants his wife, calling his wife his sister, building wells, etc)

Gevurah is like going all the way to the left. Perfectly. Although, interestingly, he was the one personified as the gevurah one, (holding back his will when Abraham was about to sacrifice him) but Isaac is the only one I know of where the Bible describes him as having fun and being playful with his wife!

8 And it came to pass, when he had been there a long time, that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out at a window, and saw, and, behold, Isaac was sporting with Rebekah his wife. Genesis 26:8

Also, his name Yitzhok in Hebrew is from the root word "to laugh"
Gevurah with a measure of kindness (the right hand) brings us to beauty (tiferet). A beautiful blend of giving and taking. Pretty interesting for someone whose known for their restrain.

Gevurah with a measure of kindness with the goal being to restrain brings us to empathy. Being able to help and be kind SPECIFICALLY BY not being intrusive or domineering. Like a therapist, just listening to a friend without judging or giving your input (unless they ask).

Gevurah with a measure of more gevurah =very rigid. At times this is necessary. But the key question is when?

Gevurah with beauty = holding back to give and /or take beautifully. This makes me think of myself trying not to punish the children out of my own anger and hurt dignity, but because they need to know that something is wrong. That already softens whatever punishment they get, plus it allows that the punishment corresponds to the "crime" -no heat.

Gevurah with domineering intent (netzah) = Being strong or empathetic consistantly. Not wishy washy. For example,in the work place you may do a feat which shows gevurah, strength. But with not being consistent in that strength, that image goes limp. You loose the dominion -no longer known for being solid, or whatever it was that you did.

However, if you remain consistent, showing strength, discipline, focus without falling for judging others, criticizing, etc. you can corner whatever market, group, field, provided you have the knowledge to back up this character!

The hardest part to control is the tongue.

Gevurah with a measure of yesod (I'm not sure how to translate yesod: foundation. sexual purity. creativity?) = This is basically being empathetic with a good measure of dominance. Knowing how wide you want to make the playing field for the other person, and not fuddling with the borders for your own sake.

Gevurah and malkhut (kingship)= All the previous traits noted above were things that emanate from yourself. Malkhut is the trait that receives from others and gives back. So exercising gevurah while giving back is basically maintaining you cool in a tough situation. At a time when you have to be strong, restraining, etc. knowing how to keep your cool is a worthwhile ability.

That is the focus for this week. Hopefully I can write more about it later. The most important thing of all is prayer though. No matter how much we work on ourselves, verbalizing what we want to attain and combining it with faith in God helps.