Gregory of Nyssa watches me sleep in Arius' shadow

i arise from a little death every morning.
i have been passive, dead to the world,
Living, yet not lifelike.
What death have i died?
What is the same?
What is different?

For, surely, the pain of yesterday
Arises with me not today;
At any rate, the death i died decreased it,
Leaving shadows and vague recollections,
Stuff not being memory.
It should be clearer, not nagging,
And painfully bright -
Or, rather, bright even though painful.

What death have we all to die?
We were all born to die.
To live, and to die - to both.

Can we accept this?
Can we become death?
Can we aspire to death?
Is that what He did,
making Himself nothing,
Desiring not equality with life,
the Source of all life,
Not to be Life;
And yet...

He was.

He, wanting not life, found life.
He, aiming for death,
Found life's target.

But the not life he wanted was life,
And the not life we want is also life,
But life for ourselves, and not for all.
Can we ever be life for all?
i think not.

Thus, we are adopted,
Being for ourselves,
where He is naturally
For ourselves.

kenosis drove Him to not life,
And weariness drives me to a little not life.
i am sad at my limitation, my weariness,
And i don't usually like embracing little deaths,
Though i always do,
Craving not life at the expense of life,
Not driving toward not life for the expense of life,
as He did.

Will the sorrow i feel, when judged,
be why He does not
Consign me to forever not life?

But sorrow comes from failure,
And failure comes in living, or,
Not living
as He did,
As i should have.

Life,
Not life,
Living,
Not living,
Sorrow -
Being born into sorrow,
Sorrow borne out in life -
Living.

we cannot be what He is,
we cannot become what He is,
we have only the adoption of His sonship.
He gives it, to us in our sorrow,
He who knew and knows our griefs -
The ones from when we didn't live, anyway.

Judge me,
Waken me,
Raise me,
Drive me to not life,
empty me to life for You.

I hope for nothing more.