Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Try giving it up. That’s exactly what I did. The rest was taken, ripped away, stripped clean.
My marriage crumbled. My true love moved away. My best friend died. My friends scattered. My neighbors moved. I quit all association with music, academics, choral directing, and organ playing. I have given away things – including things I enjoyed and were expensive. I gave up church – probably the most important decision I ever made.
Yesterday, I gave my diplomas away to former students. One was going to make an art project. I wanted to to show them the emptiness of the paper – like money. They were parchment-type documents with a gold, raised seals, and calligraphy which meant nothing.
To reinvent yourself, you must go naked and disappear. You must diminish. You must strip off what you once were. I now understand Jesus’ parable of the wineskins – “Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst.”
Few people will understand why I gave up everything. Very few will understand the beauty of reincarnation, which begins with stripping. It’s about dying to the associations that felt real. Never did I anticipate reinvention.
To become a butterfly, you must become a quiescence. Quiescence is a period of dormancy. This period is the hardest. From egg to caterpillar to chrysalis and, finally, adult, it’s transitional. But all life is that way – the splitting of the chrysalis and the slow unfolding of the wings. Chrysalis is related to the word Christ.
You must experience to understand. Few people are willing to face being a nobody. Dormancy of forest-dwelling. Quiescence of mind, body, and soul. After all, many are called but few are chosen. If you are reading this, something is calling. A new dawn is forming. A new life within. Come, follow the example, and the passage through fear will be granted.
You always seem to come through with exactly what I need to read, exactly when I need to read these. I don’t often get on youtube to watch the channel, but these, first thing in the morning at work, are often EXACTLY what I need.
Thank you.
This is what I hoped for. To allow folks to get a little wisdom here or there, just when its needed. Thanks for reading. It’s edifying to know how helpful it is to you and others, and myself.