“The absence of conflict represents an ideal, but only after conflict has been overcome.  This conflict-free state comes about when the subject [person, substitution added] lives with contradictions and does not back away from them.”

E Hubert C.G.Jung

Simplest yet most difficult

“But if the doctor wishes to help a human being he must be able to accept him as he is.  And he can do this in reality only when he has already seen and accepted himself as he is.
“Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult.  In actual life it requires the greatest art to be simple, and so acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the acid test of one’s whole outlook on life.  That I feed the beggar, that I forgive an insult, that I love my enemy in the name of Christ—all these are undoubtedly great virtues.  What I do unto the least of my brethren, that I do unto them all, that I do unto Christ.  But what if I should discover that the least amongst them all, the poorest of all beggars, the most impudent of all offenders, yea the very fiend himself—that these are within me, and that I myself stand in need of the alms of my own kindness, that I myself am the enemy who must be loved—what then?  Then, as a rule, the whole truth of Christianity is reversed:  there is no more talk of love and long-suffering; we say to the brother within us “Raca,” [moron] and condemn and rage against ourselves.  We hide him from the world, we deny ever having met this least among the lowly in ourselves, and had it been god himself who drew near to us in this despicable form, we should have denied him a thousand times before a single cock had crowed.”

Jung, CW 11, paragraph 520 (with preceding line from ¶ 519)

Tension

Holding the tension of opposites is uncomfortable.  I was listening to the Victoria "Kyrie" from his Requiem recently.  During the second kyrie eleison, there is a suspension that the altos have that creates the most wonderful tension within me, it jars me for a moment.  However, I know that at some point the chord will resolve.  What if I were to sit with that tension for longer than Victoria planned when he wrote the piece?  What would it be like to sit with the tension of the two notes that create a dissonance, wanting to either dissolve into the other or resolve to an other note? 

It is that tension that allows us to move in a direction, only after sitting with the discomfort of the tension.

One of the warmest winters in my life

Silence

When is silence noble and when is it a means to avoid connecting?

Friends

"Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Proverbs 27:6 King James version

Suffering

If only I could embrace my suffering I would be happy.