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.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net

Consistency

Seeds IX, 25

Seed: Consistency

Oh, do we like consistency. We do! We like to know that life is the way we think it is. That things are the way we think they are. It makes us feel as though life is predictable ergo safe—and it’s not how life works at all, ever.

The OED says that consistency means to place oneself and stand still. “I’m a Democrat. My parents were Democrats. Our whole family will always be Democrats.” Not a lot of room for change or growth there! Or, how about this one? “We’re Baptists, seven generations back.” Fill in the blank with your own forevers and alwayses. “Jews, redheads, Irish.” It doesn’t matter. A devotion to consistency can mean we’re resistant to change.

I love what Ralph Waldo Emerson says about consistency:

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.”

We don’t often hear the second part of the quote,

“adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”

It’s from his essay called “Self-Reliance.”

Note, dear one, Emerson’s adjective: foolish. Consistency all by itself isn’t a bad thing. It’s good to put your keys in the same place every night when you come home. It guarantees they’ll be there in the morning. It’s the foolish consistency, which keeps us where we are when we need to change—that’s the bugaboo.

Is there some foolish consistency operating in your life right now? That’s okay. Go ahead, change it!


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.

When you have friends you would like added to the Seeds e-mail list, send their addresses to me at SeedsDrCorso@comcast.net