Repression

I remember our youngest boy sometimes saying when he faced something that was hard for him to digest - like the death of an actor in a movie plot for example - "It is ok because ..." and out came a mental link that was somehow hard to follow for the rest of us. But when you stepped back and thought about it, it became quite clear that he was somehow rationalizing what was impossible to accept for him at that time. That's what repression is all about.

As I get older I have discovered on a number of occasions that what I believed was my developed spiritual nature was nothing but repression in the name of spirituality. It took a lot of soul searching and many embarrassing insights to get to this stage, but eventually a lot of the bottled up stuff came  to the surface. Today I meet many young folks in the spiritual community who might be more spiritual developed, or might be - just like I did - bottle up their unholy feelings and drives in the name of spirituality.

There is no wrong or right. We have no right to accuse the psychologist as being soulless who analyzes our primal desires and fears, or declare a faithful Catholic follower as naive. Each and everyone of us approaches life with a mix of ego involvement and faith in the supernatural. The saint has as much purpose as the sinner, the Madonna as much to say for herself as the whore. Even if some of your feelings and drives are bottled up, that's ok too. I have become quite humble these days after I have experienced some of the darker corners of my soul. The one thing, however, I still believe as much as before, wherever you come from, and whatever God still has in store for you, you are just perfect as is to complete God's magnificent puzzle.