Meister Eckhart wrote this line, “Only the hand that erases can write the true thing…”. Not only is this sound advice in regard to writing, but also for our living. We have to erase from our minds and lives our set opinions, borrowed attitudes, and our adamant arrogance in order to get to our real selves—and to the real truth. Most of us spend more time defending these things than erasing them.
A quote like Eckhart’s can change your life and mine. Such a brief statement can set our minds aflame, stir our spirits, and redirect our course—but only if we can erase what we’ve already accepted as truth. This is not an easy task for any of us. It seems that our greatest disorder is to think that we are already whole, that we already have the truth, and need not erase anything. I read an article recently titled “Opinionated But Right.” Isn’t that where we are much of the time—unwilling to erase and start over again in our thinking, writing, and living?
“Just as God,” according to Baron Von Hugel, “has often to undo all our work for Him and build it up again His way,” so we must also “undo”—erase—and “re-do” ourselves to get to the real truth of who we are and what we are to be and to do. But we cling mightily to what is already. We don’t want to erase and start anew. Jesus said something about being born anew and I wonder if he meant that if we are to find the truth we have to erase what has been and what is now, and start the search all over again. But the ego screams and we resist any kind of erasing.
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| The first iris. |
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