Lately, I’ve been feeling like I’m trapped in a Chinese finger trap. Who am I and where am I going? Am I a mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend? Am I something else that has no identity in the 3D world in which my sons, my parents, my siblings and my friends live? Part of me tries to free my finger from the trap, the other part of me fights the inevitable release. Do I need to prove myself or can I just BE myself?
Breathe, ….
Remember the phrase, “God is my co-pilot?”
When I was a kid, that saying was plastered on the bumpers of cars stuck in Miami traffic or flying low on passing lanes on the turnpike. Priests made it the subject of sermons. Youth group leaders sported the idea on T-shirts. It was something they thought was right. They believed having God as your co-pilot meant you were truly Christian.
I wondered, though, what does that mean? I’m still trying to figure it out. Maybe God shouldn’t be a co-pilot. Maybe He’s a Navigator.
The Bible says this Navigator created us on the sixth day,
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 1:26, KJV
This section of Genesis is often overlooked or misunderstood. The explanation I present here is that the “us” the Creator speaks of is The Godhead, the Creator’s own male and female trinity, The Father, the Holy Spirit and the Son. That is the foundation on which I will build my argument today. It is, of course, open for discussion. I am far from being an expert.
Past attempts at explanation
When my Dragonfly Teacher was misunderstood and limited to be just a spirit named Erik, he taught us about the four roommates,
In those discussions, we were being asked to identify the parts of our being that, in this human existence, sometimes (or maybe frequently) act as warring entities within us. The roommates, Spirit, Mind, Body, and Heart, make up the essence of us. At the time, his roommates discussions were fun and interesting, but the idea was over my head. I tried to understand enough of the idea to be able to internalize. It remained outside of my grasp, although still ever-present in my meditations. I think I’m beginning to understand this better, especially when I found the theory in the pages of the Bible, where mankind’s “image of God” is broken down into our Body, Soul and Spirit. As the Apostle Paul writes, we need to allow the three parts to work as one,
Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Thessalonians 5:23 NASB).
🧐
Wait. What about Mind and Heart? Where do they fit in? Could the Body equal the mind and the heart?
While St. Paul breaks it down into our own, human trinity, for St. Augustine of Hippo, the breakdown was two, only the Body and the Soul. My Dragonfly Teacher, on the other hand, adds one more. His Four Roommates theory adds to St. Paul’s Spirit, Soul, and Body by making the Mind a Roommate all its own.
Four,
Three,
Two,
One!
😩. To tell you the truth, all of this confusion is an ultimate Finger Trap for humanity. Why should we focus so much energy on blaming the different parts of ourselves for our own misfortune, knotting up the strands of the will, the emotions, and the conscience, overthinking everything?
In my own life, the nightmare entity is the “Should’as” that dictate the expectations placed on us as we try to maneuver this existence. Like a template given to me when my Soul entered this Body, I have been trying to follow directions and stick to the model. But whose model am I following?
That’s easy to answer.
My entire life I’ve followed the model dictated by that box that sat in my living room growing up. Whatever the movies or TV showed to be ideal, I jotted into my mind as a goal.
What drives me now
I no longer desire to be what society wants. Sometime during the past ten years, since my diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis in 2007, I found the mechanism that drives this body. I’ve tweaked it and fed it and polished all of those spots that had lost their shine. I knotted up the black snake that led to the TV and threw both away in some hot, arid dumpster in the middle of nowhere.
What I’ve allowed to become the driver of this human vehicle is not a driver at all, it is the knotted-up end of a heavy hemp rope pulling me. As I write this, I’ve discovered that I do not want to be the driver. In this life, I am powerless in what happens to me. (I know it sounds defeatist, but hear me out….) I am powerless and, in accepting this fact, I am freeing myself from the Finger Trap of this reality.
I allow the Navigator to guide me now. For a brief moment, I believe I am not worthy,
…. I step off the edge of a cliff. Straight down I fall, as if in an invisible elevator, until the door opens and I tumble out to find my way back Home, because now I know the way.
My friends, any theory that creates a war within us only serves to separate us from The Creator.
God only wants us to present the roommates as one servant. … back to Paul for clarification,
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:1-2 NASB).
This is not a task to take lightly. It calls upon painful self-analysis. It asks us to find the Truth within our Heart, the Truth that all of the roommates within us are still just parts of the One Soul inside that is Servant to The ALL, as it drives the vehicle known as our body.
In fact, many will not be able to do this. The most we can hope for, maybe, is for a happy life and a release from the Finger Trap.
Good luck, my friends,
The Dragonfly’s Student
The Dragonfly's Student 
