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The Dungeon of Self
And so it goes for all of us, no matter our status: dogs lacking exercise will fight over who lays where for hours, the leaders of the world have never-ending turf battles. When we have too much time on our hands, we are prone to turn inward--not to seek and to find, but to dwell on what we don't have, what we should have, and who is depriving us of our greatest desires. Ugly, isn't it?
"The love of our neighbor is the only door out of the dungeon of self, where we mope and mow, striking sparks, and rubbing phosphorescences out of the walls, and blowing our own breath in our own nostrils, instead of issuing to the fair sunlight of God, the sweet winds of the universe." --George MacDonald
It is so easy to slip into the dungeon of self. We usually fail to note the signs we are slipping until we are way past gone. When we realize we're in the dungeon, we know we should come out but that does not mean we really want to come out. We need help to do it and that help is right there all the time.
When reading the news had me so depressed I just wanted to eat chocolate and stay in bed, it shook me up enough to get me out of bed. If out of bed means flopping into the computer chair, that's a big mistake. Do something mundane but physical--mop the floor, sweep the sidewalk, or shovel some snow. Better yet, shovel your neighbors' snow. That's the beginning of moving into God's sunlight: doing something physical and for someone else.
Just be sure any return to the computer is not to read the news. There's lots of websites featuring God's sunlight.
Jane Mullikin
During the snowstorms, cancelled meetings allowed me time to catch up on the news. I read the international news, the area news, the local news and when I had finished, it seemed I could describe most of it in few words: greedy control freaks.
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