currency conversion

Then Peter said, "Ananias, how is it that Satan  filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and withhold some of the proceeds from the land?" (Acts 5:3)

Set in the midst of a male-dominated financial district in London, Expansion (right) was intended by the sculptor to portray the internal power of "feminine energy".  The streaming light, she says, is like the soul pouring out from the cracks of human vulnerability. I recognize the kundalini aspect in the electrical currents. But, quite frankly, they look to me like self-deception short-circuiting clear thinking. If that sounds harsh, bear with me. 

I have been attracted to energy practices as a way to transcend my own brokenness and human condition. I'd hoped they were a way to heal and better myself. But they did not deliver. Sitting cross-legged, baring my soul (though not my breasts) and deep breathing, all I got was more energy. And this should not have surprised me because energy does not convert into goodness and, in my case, the current coursing through my veins became, like an addiction, a permament condition of "want" to the exclusion of everything else: friends, family... and, most of all, love. 

Energy got me nowhere except longing for more. And in its pursuit I was deceiving myself, because I knew I was not becoming a better person. 

I began this post with a quote from the story of Ananias and Sapphira, two greedy co-conspirators whose partial withholding of a donation made them vulnerable to immediate natural death. It spoke to me because I see in the pseudovulnerable woman the same temptation: holding back vulnerability and holding onto power. 

This is not the currency of the soul.

In the quest for healing, it is important to hold nothing back; to be honest, and confess the truth. Real vulnerability looks more broken-down than expansive, and has the more humble aspect of soft, melted wax than of bronze.