The priest was talking about the Stations of the Cross and asked us to be vigilant, during the Holy Week, of the manner we walk the stations with Jesus every step of the way.
The past month has been tumultuous for me, a roller-coaster ride with tears and anger. I felt physically sick as well. Church is the only place where I feel consoled.
As I was meditating in the church this morning and partially listening to the sermon, I remembered a short conversation I had had with one of my teachers. I told him how unwell and weak I had been feeling. In his short response he shared that the reason for my feeling under the weather was my expectations. It made no sense at the time. In the church, this morning, however, it downed on me how my expectations work. Sadly, I also realized that I simply cannot let them go.
Well, the expectations that make my health shaken, my work life challenging, my personal relationships impossible, my dreams unattainable, and my very existence often hardly bearable are, in fact, the foundations of who I am in this life time. They form a personalized moral code.
I understand that in the eye of God it does not matter what I believe in because for God nothing else exists but Love.
It only matters to me. I like my expectations no matter how harmful to my well-being they are neither am I willing to let them go. This moral code forms a shield and keeps me sane. It provides me with firm guidance in an manic world.
Interestingly, this moral code is not a publicly accepted set of rules, rather, a set of personal convictions that I have formed and re-formed throughout my life. Some may even find them immoral compared to some standards. My morals, though high, are not based on the Ten Commandments, either.
I hold myself and others equally to this moral code that has many layers that are sometimes contradictory to each other. No matter how impossible it is to comply with them, I hold them true and do my very best to align myself to them. Occasionally, I also try to force others to obey them. Since my efforts are mostly fruitless, I resort to judging those who do not seem to follow my ‘high moral code’.
Life does not make sense to me without my moral code. Life is a mess, people get away with murder and I am a victim of injustice without them. I know very well that my principles make no difference in reality but as long as I have them intact, in my fantasies, life is just. Not only that, life is meaningful and livable. As soon as I release my moral code and my basic principles into the wind, my vision for humanity is gone. I am tearfully touched by every single kind human action because of my high moral standards, because I believe that beyond right and wrong of our doings, we are genuinely loving creatures. It is just not apparent most of the time.
So, I prayed and asked God this morning to forgive me for not being able to let go; I asked Him to grant me the Grace of letting go of the not-letting-go.
Amen.
