Fluency

It is stated in the the Bible, Ecclesiastes III (King James Version), "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven."

As I wake to a beautiful sunny morning here in the country, the only sound that I can hear (apart from the click clack of my acrylic nails on the keyboard) is birds singing. And, it occurs to me that a long, wet, dreary winter has its purpose. How could one really know the beauty of this morning, the magic of this experience if one has not lived through the winter and waited, waited, waited for this moment?

As my children were growing up, every now and again there was the ever so sad tale of someone that we knew, sometimes close to us, sometimes just acquaintances, or other parents whose children were at the same school, whose child had taken their life in the dead of the night. And each time I thought that the great pity and sorrow of it all was that they had not understood that the difficult days would pass and after them, happiness would come.

I feel in an extraordinarily good place right now. I felt a shift in my mind a few days ago that felt really wondrous - a sense that I had overcome all my internal struggles and that I was handling life with ease. Suddenly, everything seemed do-able. I had the feeling that it was all within my powers. I had no more control than I did yesterday but I felt under control, able to not only cope with any situation but to find my peace with it and to thrive.

At school, when my son begins a new chapter of German or Chinese the first thing he does is to make a set of cards - the word in English on one side of the card and the word in German (or Chinese) on the other. It is a little routine I started him off with when his vocabulary tests demonstrated that he didn't have command of the new words for the chapter. And, with the words now in his command, he executes the tasks of the chapter without difficulty discovering that by the time of the topic test a few weeks later, his results are very good.

I have done the same thing for myself with my submission lessons. I have written down my lessons, reading them to myself over and over, making sense of them, internalising them and embracing them. I have a little black book where I write them and it goes with me wherever I go. And, with the rules and vocabulary of my lessons, I have attempted to put the lessons into practice and to make them part of my everyday life.

Learning foreign languages did not come easily to me at school. Yes, I took my French all the way through high school but my son is much smarter than me and I needed to work really hard to achieve the score I needed; a requirement in those days to go onto study Arts at university. Perhaps, if I had made out some cards...?

It takes time. It takes time to learn the lessons of submission and to really own them: to embrace them with your heart and your mind and your soul. My lessons have finally, and after a great deal of practice and work, seeped into the pores of my skin and buried themselves deep inside of me. They are a part of me and they won't go away. Of course, I will need to continue to use them, to practice the language of submission, to converse and to write and to read but I feel fluent now. It is not difficult and I enjoy it. I enjoy it a great deal.

There are many learning styles and one way to get through some tests is just to memorize a stack of information. It never worked for me and I had to work with material until I understood it from all sides. And, when it came to Literature or History or Philosophy I needed to do even more. I needed to not only know it very well but to feel it: to feel a connection with the text such that I could write from my heart; not the words of some esteemed professor who had analyzed the text but my own response to it.

This is most certainly a guided exploration that I am on but also a very personal and individual one. It delights me to write, I am at peace. It has made me very happy.