Neither Do They Spin

I am certain you know one, probably more than one, in fact; those souls who walk through life, head held high, eager to demonstrate to anyone within close proximity the purity and steadfast conviction of their belief that all is in Divine Order and their unwavering confidence that Spirit will provide, always and inevitably.  Whether fundamentalist Christian or new age adherent to the Law of Attraction, all that is required is “the faith of a mustard seed” and the willingness to stoke the fires of certainty which will guarantee all manner of bounty and good favor.

*COUGH*

The mantra “Spirit will provide” falls incessantly from the lips of those who seem to view the Creative Energy of the universe as some one-stop welfare shop which is all too willing to supply our every need if only we will display the proper amount of faith mixed with copious quantities of 101 octane positive mental attitude.  “All I have to do is believe. . .”

*COUGH*

This line of thinking must surely have as its fountainhead a few lines found in the Christian New Testament:

“Take no thought for your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink; nor for your body, or what you’ll wear.  Look at the birds: they don’t sow, they don’t reap, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much better than they?   And why worry about your clothes?   Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin.  And yet even King Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.  Don’t worry saying, What will I eat? or, What will I drink? or, What will I wear?  Your heavenly Father knows you have need of all these things.  Don’t worry about tomorrow: for tomorrow will take care of itself.”

Nowhere in the above quote is there even a hint that there might be something expected on the part of the reader to help secure the food or the drink or the clothing.  In fact, it seems quite apparent that the Big Guy Upstairs is going to take care of everything!  All I have to do is sit back and wait faithfully for him to take care of it all!  That’s it; all that is required is faith.  I’ll just sit here and polish up my positive mental attitude and wait for Federal Express to drop off my weekly sustenance care package.  Oh, by the way God, while you’re at it, could you stick a winning lottery ticket in amongst the loaves and fishes?

I can think of few things more flaccid and nugatory than a positive mental attitude detached from action.  Belief without exertion is, at best, shortsighted folly and, at its worst, dangerous.  Those who cling tenaciously to the position that the wealth of the universe (be that wealth spiritual or material) is only as far away as our focus of belief in that position are deluded.  Is this blinders-on conviction or ignorance or just plain laziness?  Methinks it may well be comparable measures of each.  To state it bluntly, those who point to the biblical exhortation that the flowers and the birds toil not and hold this passage up as the basis for their position of sitting and passively awaiting their portion are fools.

Those deceptively idle flowers extend their roots deep into the soil and actively draw nourishment from therein.  Except when very young, birds forage to meet their needs, be it a mate, food for their belly, or materials for a nest.  Should either flora or fauna wait around for Spirit, they die.

Then there are those who take the more reasonable approach that we are co-creators with Spirit.  This position assigns at least a portion of the responsibility for attainment on oneself. These are the folks who say you have to meet Spirit halfway.  Well what happens if Spirit has more important things to do that day?  You’re stuck only halfway to your goal.  How about this: you’ve proven that you have the wherewithal to get to the halfway point; why not go all the way and just give Spirit the day off?

If there truly IS co-creation, Spirit’s part is and can only be to inspire us to action.  As proof of this assertion I offer the verity that both words, Spirit and inspire, have the same root word, “spirare,” which means “breath” or “breathe.”  Spirit may well breathe the inspiration into you.  It’s up to you, however, to act on that inspiration, not sit there like a hatchling with your pie-hole agape demanding to be fed.

Think of it this way-  no matter how he might hope and believe and pray otherwise, an architect’s blueprints do not spring to life and magically give substance to the construct the ink lines on the paper represent.  Confidence in the possibilities inherent in Life is analogous to the blueprints.  If you want those possibilities to be made manifest it is YOU who must do the manifesting through efficacious deeds.

Either way, don’t credit or blame Spirit; credit or blame yourself.  Get up off your backside and do something!

©Billy Red Horse

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