The state of mind and body that blocks any awareness of the presence of greater being inevitably produces a special kind of suffering….We must strive to reach a state where our transparency to Divine Being endures….It is essential to discover within ourselves an attitude – even a physical posture – in which we can be open and submissive to the demands of our inner being while at the same time allowing this inner being to become visible and effective in the midst of our life in the world. And for this to happen we must so transform our ordinary daily life that every action is an opportunity for inner work. Karlfried Graf Durckheim

None of us want to be ordinary. We long for the extraordinary. Our inner being – our soul – longs to soar above and beyond the mundane.

And so we strive for greatness, searching for whatever will help us clamber….higher.  

But too often, we confuse the extraordinary with what seems to be the highest peak in the realm of the ordinary. And yet a caterpillar does not seek transformation by climbing the highest tree to feast on the best leaves or becoming the fastest on its many feet or seeking a name for itself amongst all other caterpillars. No, a caterpillar eventually reaches a stage in its life when it seeks to go beyond the ordinary entirely. To seek the truly extraordinary. And to do so, it spins a beautiful cocoon out of silk, ceases all of its normal ways to living, and enters a place of silence. Stillness. Here it allows the natural unfolding of metamorphosis to transform it into something entirely new.

We humans are equally designed for such transformation, but unlike the caterpillar, we resist the call to cocoon and change because we don’t like stillness. And silence. 

And you will remain unchanged as long as you ignore the call within. As the villain in the book S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst illustrates, you will remain firmly planted in the ordinary…

As long as you choose extraction over creation, as long as you mistake commerce for art and destruction for progress, as long as you remain drunk on the juice that issues from the crush of a thing or place or person…. as long as you conflate power with influence, primacy with honor, goal with purpose, duty with responsibility.

These earthly shadows of the extraordinary are no substitute for the divine.

Today we will review the last six episodes of Awestruck to see the overarching depiction of how we can live in the tension between the external demands of an ordinary world and the internal yearning for transcendent being.

Source Scripture

Eradicating Evil: John 1:35-51

Muditation: John 2:1-11

Telos – Why You’re Angry: John 2:13-25

Love Like So: John 3:1-21

None Compare John 3:22-36

Who is Really In Prison? Matthew 14:3-5; Mark 6:17-20; Luke 3:19-20

Connect

Twitter: @AwestruckPod
Email: info@awestruckpodcast.com

Extras

The Awestruck Podcast musical playlist 
(Apple I Spotify)

Suggested Movie: The Last Samurai starring Tom Cruise

TikTok User @PonderingWorshipper

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