Th3 Simple Questions

WHO AM I?

I am the things that control you: I am the saros (the sun and moon barycenter) which, through the courtesy of the Suprachiasnatiuc Nucleus (SCN) of your cells, links your body to the circadian rhythms of day/night. I am the geography of where you live or work. I am the cultural system of your people, tribe, gang, clan, corporation, neighborhood, school or work place. I am the local, regional and national economy. I am the political system, national, state and local. I am individuals who have power over you: your parents, family, friends, enemies (whether they be naturally connected or blended by relationship or by karmic carpool.) These are some of the exogenous (outer) systems that control you.

I am also your endogenous drivers: your age and phase of development, your place in birth order, your body limitations (weaknesses and strengths), or the addictive substances that control you. I am your DNA, your biology and your medical history. I am your inner personality fragments which drive you psychologically; your compulsions, fears, doubts, anxieties, repulsions, attractions, habits, temperaments, memories, syndromes, dreams, chemical reactions to pharma and psychological manifestations.

And then there is your spiritual dimension, your openness to spiritual influences; your religious shaping, your destiny, which somehow filters your perceptions and is a type of oscillator that excites you or turns you off.

Our age is quite pleased that it has defined a human being in such intimate detail.

WHY AM I HERE?

All these things control us and define us to one another. They offer easy labels by which we can categorize one another with our quick scientific minds. Then we think we know one another. And because we have this modern orientation that likes simple categorization, and because this is a time-pressured era, we sum each other up in simple phrases: little boy, old man, working mom, heart breaker, wise guy, or any of a dozen more. They are the stereotype, the shorthand picture.

When you meet me, when I meet you, we must work very hard to find one another amid all the baggage we carry, the complexity of who we are. Within all of these dynamics is the genuine you and the genuine me.

One of the tricks for actually meeting one another is to reverse our wills. When we sit together, I say to myself, this is not about me, it is about you. I am here to serve you. What do you need? What’s up with those rings? I can grow curious about you in the space I can create within myself. And if I sit quietly and ask simple, simple questions, out of that very dynamic person you are, from that complex baggage and history, a very unique person may emerge, even just for a moment.

WHAT DO I WANT?

I want us to try to tame one another and offer a space for that very unique other to feel safe enough to emerge out from within the complexities of themselves. To TAME one another, like the fox in Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince:

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world....”

Meeting or taming is the first step toward a new FAITHFULNESS that Rudolf Steiner describes:

Make for yourself a new and strongly courageous view of Faithfulness.

What is usually called Faithfulness passes so quickly.

Let this be your Faithfulness.

You will experience moments, fleeting moments, with the other person, when he will appear to you as if filled, irradiated, with the true essence of his Spirit. And then there may be—indeed there will be—moments, long periods of time, when he becomes dried up and darkened. But you will learn to say to yourself at such times, “The Spirit makes me strong. I remember the true being of this person. I saw it once. No illusion, no deception shall rob me of it.”

Battle always for the image that you saw. The struggle is Faithfulness and in this struggle one person shall be near another, as if endowed with the