Consistency

Seeds IX, 26

Seed: Contradiction


Unfortunately, turning over a new leaf on foolish consistency can mean that we must contradict ourselves. Self-contradiction can be frustrating.

As I write this, less than a week has gone by since Saddam Hussein was hanged in Iraq. I’ve been praying for Saddam every day for more than ten years. Not so much for his sake, but for mine. It’s not all right with me to hate anyone or anything.

Here’s contradiction. It’s also not all right with me to take a life. Killing someone for what he or she has done doesn’t undo the original doing. It doesn’t make up for it. It doesn’t go toward healing it. Here’s another contradiction: It galls me that I then have to pay the actual cost of maintaining that person’s existence. A prisoner doesn’t pay his or her own way.

I contradict myself. The first statement speaks against the second; the second against the first. Do I not even know my own mind? Actually, I do. I think and believe both things at the same time. Walt Whitman gives me an out, for which I’m grateful. “Do I contradict myself?” he writes in “The Song of Myself,” “Very well then, I contradict myself.”

Be serene,

Dr. Susan Corso

Seeds are remarkable gifts. Sown in consciousness, they bring you to the most important part of your being—your Divine Spark.

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