[Seasons: Winter XVIII]
Have you ever tried working in freezing temperatures? If you have, you know that there aren’t gloves warm enough to keep your fingers from going numb. One’s entire body can be warm while ten fingers, from the second knuckle down, are pulsating in semi-frozen pain.
But it’s not the frozen agony that hurts the worst. Once back in the warmth of the home, it’s the thawing that is the most painful. It can drop an adult to his knees begging for mercy.
Like finger tips in the winter, truth can hurt on the front end; it’s downright painful on the back end.
There’s a simple reason for this: for truth to be fully encountered and understood, it must be applied, which requires practice. An idea, concept, or theory, on their own, change nothing. Embodied ideas, utilized concepts, and applied theories create change.
The thawing of fingers is not separate from their freezing; it’s (the worst) part of the same experience. Thawing will *always* happen. When it comes to encountering truth, change will always happen. Without change, it’s ethereal, merely an idea. Or, without change, truth is not fully true.
