Problems -- some serious -- can arise as a result.

This isn't about shutting people off. No, we don't do that. It isn't about rejection. It's about praying so that the Holy Spirit is the filter between you and others; it's about relationships that don't infringe on your freedom, relationships that are well-ordered.

Let's face it: we all go through trials in life and one of them is with people who in their hubris have determined what the relationship should be. They have defined the proper closeness. They are the "loving" ones because they seek closeness, even though over-closeness may not be in the cards (and in some cases hurts).

We're not speaking here about boyfriends, girlfriends, nor a spouse. We're not speaking about children. We're speaking of friends. We're speaking of relatives. We're speaking of co-workers.

We're called to love. That's the great commandment. We're called to love everyone.

We're not called, however, to be bosom-close to every person.

One of the reasons that monks and nuns live in isolation is because such relationships can bring spiritual regression.

Says Father Yozefu-B. Ssemakula, author of The Healing of Families, "Because our lives are so very much made up by what interactions we have, we cannot pretend our relationships or friendships have nothing much to do with what is going on in our lives -- or with who we are. When Saint Paul says, 'Bad company corrupts' (1 Corinthians 15:33), it is not only something to do with a physical bad example and copying it, it is all that and more. A negative spiritual influence is taking place, in addition to the external, visible friendship, we can even say, before it. And this is why Paul warns against repeatedly associating with ungodly people. Because the nature of our spirit is to bond with other human spirits that are brought close to it by the link of friendship, it's an illusion to think that one can keep bad company and maintain one's 'cool.' Our spirits do not ask for our permission to bond; they just bond when friendship is created.

"This negative spiritual influence is as powerful a bondage as any other bondage. We have to keep in mind here that once there is sin, there is an express invitation made to the evil one to come and inhabit that relationship. And, therefore, even if a relationship is originally a tool given to us by God for the good -- like many tools -- in this way, it becomes 'rail lines' along which 'the train' of the evil one runs between people to adversely affect their lives."

If the presence of a person vacuums away your energy and joy -- or affects other relationships, especially your marriage -- something is wrong; a dark spirit has been introduced; it can not be allowed to linger.

As the mystic Maria Esperanza once said, there are people who do not know their place; they're pushy; they're hurt if you don't respond as they do; you must be like them; you must be their idea of who you should be. Often they play on sympathy. They often seem to have a crisis. When you "owe" someone, or are made to feel guilty, you're in bondage to the person. When you don't react the way you should -- the way they want, the way they expect, the way they have determined you should, based on their idea of what the relationship or situation is -- they take umbrage. There is antagonism. You can do no right. There is the projection that we have let them down. You don't love like they do! This is a toxic relationship.

It also happens with acquaintanceships. They don't correctly reckon the relationship. They have not considered what you desire. They have inserted themselves into your life and defined you in a way that's not natural.

There is suffering in life, and one such suffering is when we are yoked with someone like this. Naturally, we do not want to (and should not) hurt them. Seek the help of the Holy Spirit. Always practice kindness. But let God define the relationship.

Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, every time you are around them.

Surround yourself with His mantle. Those who interject themselves in such a manner can be a "Trojan horse," inserting not just themselves but also spirits. The "fruit": division. It can affect families.

When others define us (or when we define ourselves based on the false pretenses of the world, or what others perceive, or want), layers build around us. You know the feeling: you don't feel like your real self. Your life doesn't fit, as it should, like a comfortable old shoe. There are different "yous" based on different situations.

If someone causes you always to feel like someone other than yourself (and bad about yourself: less good than you are), ask God to correct the situation.

Don't force things.

Don't try to be someone you are not. Love strongly but with discipline.

Go with what feels right instead of what looks right (to the world).

Let God be your main audience.

In the truth of who you are is freedom.

Said a woman named Crystal McVea who had a near-death glimpse of Heaven: "Unlike on earth, where I was plagued by doubts and fears, in Heaven there was nothing but absolute certainty about who I was. This was a far more complete representation of my spirit and my heart and my being than was ever possible on earth, a far deeper self-awareness than the collection of hopes and fears and dreams and scars that defined me during my life. I was flooded with self-knowledge, and all the junk that cluttered my identity on earth instantly fell away, revealing, for the first time ever, the real me. 'Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you,' God says in Jeremiah 1:5. And now I knew myself.

"Imagine that -- the first person we meet in Heaven is ourselves."

-- Michael H. Brown, 5/15/13

The search

 
In solitude, when there is quiet, it is then that the inner world demands attention.  Face to face with a presence that is closer than our skin, beyond form, yet seeking a response.  If I was an atheist I would find solitude different….how different I am not sure, for the same emptiness of silence would remain.

Being self aware, mankind is the observer of the universe.  Perhaps without self awareness, the universe would simply be asleep, unconscious, for there would be no one to see or observe what is and the seeking after meaning.  We are the name givers after all; we make up species, name plants and seek to see ever more deeply.

Who observes us?  Observation is not a good concept when dealing with the transcendent, but language does have its limitations.  Are we brought into existence because we are simply in the ‘mind’ of God?  If this is so, why is this observer so hidden from us?   Perhaps apart from pets, the natural world only experiences us as an intrusion, often a very unpleasant one, but hidden from them as well?  Hence, our aloneness and feelings of being rootless and adrift, in an often painful and confusing universe with only a few short years of actual existence.   

I believe we are made to search, to seek for answers and in the journey to understand that we will never get to the bottom of it.  We live in a realm where ‘doubt’ is what keeps us searching for deeper answers in relationship to the mysteries of our existence.  As well as seeking to find that treasure, the deepest longings of our hearts….which for all of our sophistication, is to simply be seen. We call that ‘being seen’, love. 

As I get older, I am finding that time has a funny quality to it.  It takes everything away from us if we live long enough.  Yet, as we are being stripped of one strength at a time, one family member and our friends, when our cultures pass us by and leave us in the dust, yet, there is a deeper life within that becomes stronger, stable, even if the outward aspects of our lives move towards extinction…at least as far as the world is concerned.

Faith cannot become a mere ideology, since they all die.  Faith and yes religion, which I believe is necessary, stays alive because it is ever brought to its knees by failure and a lack of understanding of the teachings and example of its founder.  The failures of the followers of God, do not point to the non-existence of God nor does it say anything about the actual faith….it only points to the central problem in our world, the cause of perhaps most of our sufferings, it is of course ‘us’, ‘me’. 

 That which observes and upholds us will one day bring us all to an accounting, to a time when all of what we did, did not do, the pain and joy we caused, will be looked at, we will become the observer of ourselves, to see ourselves as God see us.  I am not sure that is consoling, but something necessary in a world where justice is also an important issue for humans.  Justice for all, and also an accounting for all….love demands that, that we see all, that we come to the true understanding of who and what we are, for the need of mercy, both to receive and to give.  In the end, we choose, to receive mercy and grace, to give it, or not.

I do believe in hell, a place of eternal isolation, a state of being where one chooses not to observe as God observes, so stays locked in a freely chosen existence where the only observer is the one locked in a self-made prison.  Where their judgments are the only ones worth paying attention to; becoming perhaps the ultimate victims themselves, impossible to reach for eternity, trapped in one moment of isolation freely chosen. 

We either create ourselves, or allow grace to create us.  Grace allows love to blossom, healing to flow and living waters to quench the deepest thirst of the human heart.  By grace we are brought to full stature, a gift that we respond to.  To create ourselves is ultimately to create a world of lies, since we become trapped in an endless cycle of our own finite nature.  Only love can free us from that reality, grace, something I believe that is open to everyone.

Isaac of Stella

• it embraces all the feelings which can be implanted in human nature, and can be fitly and satisfactorily adapted to every condition, and all assaults. 
• it contains an invocation of God against every danger, 
• it contains humble and pious confession, 
• it contains the watchfulness of anxiety and continual fear, 
• it contains the thought of one's own weakness, confidence in the answer, and the assurance of a present and ever ready help. For one who is constantly calling on his protector, is certain that He is always at hand.
• It contains the glow of love and charity,
• it contains a view of the plots, and a dread of the enemies, from which one, who sees himself day and night hemmed in by them, confesses that he cannot be set free without the aid of his defender.

This verse is an impregnable wall for all who are labouring under the attacks of demons, as well as impenetrable coat of mail and a strong shield. It does not suffer those who are in a state of moroseness and anxiety of mind, or depressed by sadness or all kinds of thoughts to despair of saving remedies, as it shows that He, who is invoked, is ever looking on at our struggles and is not far from His suppliants. It warns us whose lot is spiritual success and delight of heart that we ought not to be at all elated or puffed up by our happy condition, which it assures us cannot last without God as our protector, while it implores Him not only always but even speedily to help us.

This verse, I say, will be found helpful and useful to every one of us in whatever condition we may be. For one who always and in all matters wants to be helped, shows that he needs the assistance of God not only in sorrowful or hard matters but also equally in prosperous and happy ones, that he may be delivered from the one and also made to continue in the other, as he knows that in both of them human weakness is unable to endure without His assistance. 

St. John Cassian
Conferences 10, 10.