Surrender and Discipline

  

• Discipline is the brother of surrender
• Discipline comes from the heart. Surrender comes from the soul.
• Discipline is a devotion. Surrender is a state of being.
• Surrender and Discipline feed one another and make the life of he who has both, infinitely stronger

I have a new teacher in my life, his name is Qi and his purpose is to teach me discipline.

When I first heard this news I got kind of afraid and kind of excited. I mean I know I could use more discipline, I'm a bit flighty at times, and i do love schedules and to do lists, but I've always thought of discipline as a straight jacket, restraints on my passion and I've never been able to balance the two.

I've just blogged some on that topic on Be, but while I'm trying to learn to unrestrain myself, my dreamer, my passion, I've chosen to take on this task of discipline as
well, even though that seemed counter intuitive at the time.

I feel as though my journey has come to the banks of a very wide, very wild river.

There is no apparent way to cross, but I know I must in order to keep going on my journey.

The water is rushing so fast there is no way to walk or even swim across it. One step into that water and I'll be swept away.

I've been on this bank panicking, grabbing at straws trying to figure out some way across that river and when that fails, I've sat down and tried to just make home be at the river bank, but none of this is working.

I've employed my common sense, tried to find some way to build a bridge or a raft or some mechanism that will swiftly carry me above and across those waters.

I tried using my brain and see if there was some pattern to be worked out along the rocks that jet out into the river or to see if there is some point of the river nearby that is shallow enough not to be a problem.

I've even tried working with the other people along this bank, people who I think, like myself, got stuck here and these folk have set up home and just settled, but I'm not a settler and working with them... well mostly they seemed bewildered.

I've tried standing at the banks throwing a tantrum... that was fun and gave a good show to those in the camps here.

I thought perhaps patience was the lesson. I would just sit at the bank and wait for the waters to calm, then cross easily.

I've tried giving up and just building a quaint hut on this side of the river with the other folk.

I've even tried faith, just stepping into the river believing God will miraculously carry me across the way he did with the Israelites when they were asked to cross the Jordon at the height of that river. Like in that story from the bible, I even stayed in faith and kept walking even when I saw nothing happening, but by the time I'm about waste deep I feel the current pulling me under and away, and my survival instinct kicks in and I fight like hell to get back to the shore, the bank of safety where I lie choking and sputtering on all that river water I've just swallowed in my panic to get back to shore.

Yesterday I saw the movie Cloud Atlas... if you are a deep thinker and truly ponder the workings of the universe and past lives, it is a brilliant, beautifully done movie and I recommend it highly, but back to my river problem... In this movie one of the lines that made me gasp aloud was one I cannot quote exactly now, but the gist of it was that if we are to fulfill our destiny, we must choose not to have survival as our priority. We can not achieve greatness clinging to the rock of "survival".

I am clinging to the banks of this river for exactly that reason, survival.

The river is fast and deep and I will get swept away if I get into it and I am only thinking about my safety.

Now don't get me wrong here, I am not advocating recklessness, but there is a legitimate case to be made here that if we put our own survival ahead of honoring god's will or our greater purpose in this life, then we will fail at both.

So what's the answer?

For me, it is surrender.

I am surrendering my need to "survive" and I am stepping back into that river with my faith intact and I will surrender to its current and I will stop clinging to my idea of what my destination is and what my life should look like and I will allow that river to wash me to a new place altogether.

So far, I have seen how surrender leads to discipline and thanks to Qi, I'm seeing discipline in a very different light. Discipline, a word that has made me-- the sub... ironic isn't it? --cringe for all my life, but Qi has shown it to me as a sign of devotion, of love. He is beginning to show me where discipline can well up from my passion, not extinguish my passion.

This will be a challenge for sure, but I do like a good challenge. ;-)

I can cultivate a disciplined mind, body, and spirit, and that discipline flows up from my heart as long as I stay surrendered in my soul. And, best of all, I am no longer stuck on that river bank!