A Thin Strip of Paper

There are two ways to live. By the clock, or by the body.

One group of people lives by the clock. They get up at 7:00. They eat breakfast at 7:30. They eat lunch at 12:00. Dinner at 6:30. They go to bed at 11:00.

And they wake up at 7:00 the next day and start over.

The other group of people lives by the body. They eat when they feel hungry. They sleep when their bodies feel tired. They rest when they need to rest, work when they need to work.

The first group is not free. They have added external discipline to their lives in order to be self-controlled. The second group is free from time. They live according to what they know and what they need. They are in tune with their bodies, in tune with their lives.

These two groups of people live side by side. They work together, play together, go to church together. From the outside, their differences seem unrecognizable. In the same way, the two ways to live exist side by side. They are two spheres, these two ways to live, that exist simultaneously. In the same place. Same time. One sphere governs one group of people, the other sphere governs another group of people.

What I am trying to say is this: We are all living here in the same place and the same time, but we are all governed by one of two spheres. I sort of think of them as an Inner Sphere and an Outer Sphere, if you follow me. The Outer Sphere governs by a sort of created code, a man-made label-set, in this case time, and the Inner Sphere governs by the natural progression of things, in this case the needs of the body.

The Outer Sphere includes the rules created by the society. The Inner Sphere, on the other hand, includes the rules of the heart, collectively and generally known as the conscience.

People who live by the Outer Sphere follow the path prescribed to them by their culture, by their families, by the System into which they were born. Some, depending on the country, might call the System the American Dream. Others might call it the Business World. Still others might call it the Way Things Are, as in “that’s just the Way Things Are.”

These people follow what they’ve been told to follow in order to obtain some sort of Happiness, or Success, or Wealth, or Security, regardless of the cost to their hearts or conscience.

They make decisions based on how to keep their jobs, impress the right people, maintain their preferred level of comfort, create as little disturbance to the System as possible. Regardless of the cost to their hearts or conscience.

But I tell you this:

If you have the ability and the awareness and the perspective to be governed by the Inner Sphere, do. Do with all your heart. Do what you know to be right even if it costs you your job, or your status, or your comfort, or your security. The Law, the rules of Society, were set in place to provide external discipline for those unable to control themselves. Jesus came to set us free from the Outer Sphere for freedom’s sake. So that we may live by our hearts, by what we know to be right and true and good, and that we may lay aside the rules of Society as one might lay aside a thin strip of paper, knowing that, by following the Inner Sphere, we follow something Eternal.