9. Go into your own heart and learn to know yourself there.

“A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart. We know so many things, but we don’t know ourselves! Why, thirty or forty skins or hides, as thick and hard as an ox’s or bear’s, cover the soul. Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.” ~ Meister Eckhart
This teaching shows up in the philosophy of John O'Donohue. We don't know ourselves but more importantly, we deeply desire to hold the knowledge of the self but we do everything we can to avoid learning precisely that. Why? Fear is likely the first and best reason yet I can't make the connection in confidence. Why? Almost certainly it is because of fear.

We each have our own reasons why we are afraid because we all have our own stories, experiences and characteristics. I am afraid because I might find, when all of the skins are peeled away, an insecure little boy who has not earned any of the things of value I have gathered over the span of lifetime. Once uncovered, all of those good things will vanish like smoke from a small fire and I would be left alone, bereft but perhaps a touch relieved the charade has finally ended.

Such fear is not rational. It does not line up with the faith I have hoped to have grown through conscious effort and unseen blessings which flowed to through mercy and grace. Rational thoughts are scarce, however, when things go bump in the night. Eckhart is right, however, we are expected to go into our own ground and learn what we can about our own essence.

This is the heart of contemplation, to learn the nature of things and contemplation is the tool of mystics to undertake voyages of self-discovery. We contemplate to study and we study to learn and what we learn is all about our uniqueness. At the end, we have been promised we will learn our uniqueness comes from being a creation of God. Ultimately, that is what study is all about - to learn who we are, what we are, why we exist and who created us. Why? So he can love us and we can love him.

Pray Psalm 139. He knows us. There is nothing to fear.