conversation of reconciliation

Please.  Come in.

I want to apologize for holding you in such contrary light –

weak, unworthy, an enemy (as was my early teaching),

oppositional, something to be feared…separate from my life experience.

 

Who I am, in part, depends on you, ego.

Still, I try and dissect you from my living – my being.

Denying you is denying the “I am” created within.

So here we are in this conversation of reconciliation.

 

It’s just…when you seek validation from outside sources,

or when you want to be bigger than who you are,

it scares me…frustrates me…makes me suspicious;

always leaves me hungry…is always not enough…always leaves me empty.

 

I know…I have given you away too quickly, too often – hurting you deeply;

Wanting to latch onto anything that would validate my existence – not believing my

existent is validation enough.

I play my part, too in affirming you when you think yourself better than the other…

denying the other of what I seek.

 

I am afraid of becoming too intimate, so I protect us;

I am afraid of diminishment, so I attach to a vision of “more than who I am”.

Living this split ego-ality kills us a bit each day…

inauthentic to who we are…who we are invited to become.

 

Fragility is propagated…self-degradation, self-efficacy, power, and control become

gods.

We become partners in creating a false-self to validate the reason for our existence.

A ruler rises – Fear – to occupy our desolate landscape and dominate our domain;

elevating judgment and duality; making us less by luring us to think we are more…

or less.

 

This is what I am learning – if we try to hold on to who we are…

If we try to keep safe who we believe we are now…

it is only dust,

to be blown away by the slightest breeze.

 

It is in the letting go where we are saved;

in the vulnerability;

in risking that if we lose our life, we will find it;

in the deep trust of Mystery who holds the letting go, vulnerability, and risking.

 

So let go of who you think you are suppose to be…

And I will drop the chains of expectation of who I think I am suppose to be –

Trusting ourselves to the vulnerability of this moment…

Trusting ourselves to trust Mystery.

 

If we lose this false sense of self, then…then…

we will be found.

And we will find ourselves – authentic, true, and free…

discovering within what has sustained our being all along – LOVE

 

LOVE – not removing  inward deserts, barren caverns, or empty chasms

(they are real and life companions) –

but discovering LOVE…with us…within these hard, scary, lonely places…now.

LOVE dwelling within us – our community, our creation, our being…perpetually.

 

And, yes, this gift given…it is a choice.

A grace and a responsibility for sure.

It is LOVE given to do with as we will –

like within this conversation of reconciliation.

 

Cromwell Meadow

Early spring and

meadow flowers greet me with wafts of love –

this is their time;

that’s the way of meadow flowers.

 

Waiting…

through short light-filled days;

through cold rains and beneath blankets of snow;

abiding within death shrouded horizons until their time.

 

We are the uncomfortable ones…

I mean letting life be as it is meant to be.

We work to prolong what is not ours to extend:

pick it, preserve it, in-case it, flatten and dry it…

 

We want to hold on to a rose-colored life;

as we desire it to be;

as we want to perceive it to be;

but this is not life’s rhythm.

 

We’ll work so hard to change a flower’s form –

altering its essence in the process;

forgetting…

a flower is only being what a flower can be.

 

Living only in its time;

blooming in its time;

offering redolence and blessings in its time;

loving the world with presence in its time.

 

Displaying beauty and infusing color;

offering community for creation’s creatures;

giving itself for the good of the whole;

trusting it is part of something bigger…something sustaining.

 

And change persists –

giving way to withering – giving itself to the earth;

loving in a new form…

loving completely.

 

Still the essence and spirit of the buttercup and aster lives on –

within us – a part of our essence now;

something we cannot contain nor hold;

still giving us joy…still loving us.

 

Oh that we could be as the flower,

living fully within our time;

living beyond glass walls of power, fear, prestige or from between the pages of expectation;

relinquishing the work of preserving who we think we are or suppose to be.

 

to live fully – as the flower…

feeling the cool spring breeze,

leaning into life’s storms;

soaking in the sun’s light,

 

Creating and adding beauty to the world,

anticipating our blooming,

offering community;

knowing we are a part of something bigger – giving love…giving love

 

And when it is our time to be here no more;

knowing our essence and spirit lives on in those we have loved;

we will become a part of a bigger whole – Creations community…

in our time.

another day…

Another day Dear One,

and my longing for deep Union grows.

 

Another day, and still, guilt and shame fabricate a filtered vision –

perceiving through my faults, my failures, my inadequacies…

Scarcity’s presence always looming;

a veiled reality is all I can bear.

 

Another day and walls of fear separate me

from myself – from others;

from creation;

from You, Dear One.

 

Another day and I numbly embrace culture’s fixed categories and systems –

where control maintains a false security;

where oppression is a harness for perceived power;

where my fear, too, would enslave another within categories and systems.

 

You, though, Dear One… Your vision is veil-less and clear.

You love fearlessly – incessantly;

gazing upon us as Love’s potential – full of infinite possibility;

Your perspective unconstrained and limitless.

 

Unity – Your heart’s desire:

no labels…no categories…no typecasts.

In Your eyes – each moment sacred and new…dwelling in reality’s now;

Each day seeing us as we are – Love…

 

making each day not just another day.

Transformation…

Ego and Transformation are having an earnest conversation . . .

Ego, loud and seemingly confident – really, fearful of losing itself;

Transformation speaking from authenticity –

knowing Love, Freedom, and Truth.

 

My soul suspended within the dialogue ;

wishing only to hibernate just a bit longer –

muscles, nervously weak;

instinctively knowing living out ego’s desires is death.

 

I hear Transformation’s voice –

Her hope-filled intonations reverberating within my unknown –

knowing what I do not.

Waiting for me on the other side of threshold. . . waiting…

 

(Deep breath…)

 

What is my compelling desire…truly?

To dare move toward what I cannot fully know…trusting?

To want and to know Love more deeply?

Or to stand firm in perceived certainty – within my walled world view,

never moving closer than what I am now into Wholeness’ warm Light?

 

Am I ready?

Maybe it is the doubt revealed in this question

that keeps me from stepping into liminal space?

Am I willing to trust myself into Transformative Love?

 

Can I handle the gifts She offers?

I suspect not on my own – maybe that’s the point.

Shall I remain here in anxiety and fear’s ceaseless embrace?

Tunnel vision can feel safe…

 

Or will I focus on Love’s glint in Transformation’s eyes?

Will I recognize the hope She holds for me?

How She holds me?

Teaching me to embrace anxiety and fear?

Teaching me to embrace myself?

 

Vulnerability is risky…scary;

something to admire in others.

But, I know…

I know I cannot bear to stay where I am…

 

A deep trust-infused prayer slips silently past my lips.

Courage begins to encircle anxiety and fear.

I find myself, now, at Transformation’s portal.

I lift my foot. . .

It’s time, isn’t it?

It’s time, isn’t it, Dear One?

To lose myself a bit more;

my created self, that is?…

It’s time to let go.

 

I do feel grief welling up –

another end of whom I think myself to be.

It’s hard to leave a dwelling place;

where cloaked authenticity is the norm – comfortable…

but not really real.

 

Ego is afraid of losing itself, right?…

of sliding into nothingness?

The fear of possibilities is stirred, is it not?

that we might not belong;

that we might be worthless;

that we might be unlovable;

that our life is only a shadow and a whisper…a vapor;

that our life might not matter;

that we might awake to find all this to be true?

 

So we do what we can to hang on to our manufactured selves;

unwilling to risk the letting go…

of submerging ourselves in the waters of unknowing;

of free-falling into trust;

into who we might become.

 

We desperately grasp onto whatever gives identity –

praise, power, possessions.

We live a surface life.

We create an alternate self –

convincing ourselves our masks are skin and bone.

Addiction, attachments, shame, violence –

by-products of living out of who we are not.

Knowing – soul knowing – these are not true definitions of who we are.

 

It is only in the losing of ourselves, we are found…

 

So it’s time again, isn’t it, Holy One?

To respond to this perennial invitation;

to open clinched fists;

to bathe in the waters of unknowing;

to free-fall into trust;

to remove suffocating masks and breath freely;

to lose ourselves.

 

Knowing You are the heart-holder.

Knowing You are Love on my skin and in my bones.

Knowing the paradox of

grief transformed within joy;

falling as being lifted up;

letting go as being held;

losing myself as being found;

abandoning a created-self as discovering my authentic being.

Knowing I will be found in ways I cannot fathom.

Knowing I will be loved by Love into a deeper understanding and unity…

 

It’s time again, Dear One, isn’t it?

lost…and finding

Its subtleness is like a drug –

“busy-ness” consumes each next moment;

each next minute;

each next hour;

each next day.

 

I have followed the imperative paths of the next task

until I become numb to the contours of my own life.

Rote living has become rote.

I do not recognize home.

I do not recognize the essence of who I am.

 

Awareness awakens me…“I am lost.”

 

Lost in accumulated expectations;

Lost in incapacitating emotional muck;

Lost in debilitating relational upheaval;

Lost in exhausting, ego-feeding energy spent.

I am so far away from myself –

dissected from my soul.

 

Sunset approaches…

 

I am writing into darkness.

I am writing on the edge of what feels like non-existence,

sitting within midnight’s realm…

Where you cannot see me;

where I cannot see myself.

 

I am writing into pain –

not that which is felt by flesh,

but deep, description defying pain,

residing in the essence of our being…

boring its way toward the surface.

 

I am writing into shame and anger,

learned and unmerited,

placed on shoulders by others…by me;

anger birthed from guilt and this shame –

the denial of which turns to fear, bitterness, and hate.

 

How vulnerable it feels when our pain is exposed.

How vulnerable to name our anger, guilt and shame.

How vulnerable it feels when moving from invisibility to authenticity;

questioning our existence instead of living as if we don’t;

remaining in consuming darkness when it would be easier to flee.

 

I am so thirsty;

so hungry for lived truth.

I long for Home…

longing for Light in darkness – pre-dawn hope.

 

It’s time to let go of all that expectation would have me be –

who I am is enough in this moment…

will be enough in becoming.

It’s time to embrace darkness and pain…

the welcoming of which leads to wholeness.

It’s time to rise with life scars engraved into my being…

symbols of being truly alive – hidden by cosmetics no more.

It’s time for a grateful heart, knowing I am not alone –

held by both community and Creator.

How vulnerable it feels when you live fully into others and into this world.

 

And this is weakness?

I would suggest otherwise –

 

I am writing into freedom –

through the darkness and pain;

letting go of all that expectations have planned for me;

letting come all of whom I have been created to be.

being found daily…

too small…

We live too small, too often –

small world,

small dreams,

small mind,

small spirit,

small heart,

within small words like “either” and “or”.

 

This, the way of a heart cloaked within scarcity –

where fear and control is the currency;

where the wages are integrity, authenticity, and self-worth;

where enough is inadequate;

where expectations gather like hungry wolves.

 

We feed these wolves too often,

unaware it is our own souls we throw into their midst –

believing we can stave off such appetites –

satiating hunger…

starving ours.

It feels safer for our egos to live in the familiar…

 

Yet…

 

The Light in darkness;

the breath for the breathless;

the hope for the hopeless…

is that there is more to this life –

a greater freedom

a greater openness

a greater Love

a more voluminous way to live…

into expansive words like “both” and “and”;

each moment as sacred.

 

It is a paradox, I know.

Backwards to our minds –

where controlling leads to narrowness

and vulnerability leads to Life;

where leading with a yielding heart –

rather than grasping and manipulating,

births freedom;

where embracing the unknown is the way to Unity…

 

This is the Way –

to more…much more…

so much more than scarcity allows us to imagine.

 

How do we want to live?

a small question…

But in the asking –

a journey begins…

to live not too small…

like winter trees…

Open, exposed, naked –

I long for such vulnerability, transparency –

to be broken…stripped.

I know, in part, what I am asking…

I am aware – I do not know all that I ask.

 

Hidden for too long…

Protective for too long…

Closed for too long…

Too long captive to fear, guilt, and shame.

 

I have nothing more for them to take.

Stripped down to authenticity…

there is nothing more…

there is nothing more.

 

I sit on the edge of Cromwell’s meadow.

A sparrow sings songs of freedom as it flies across the barren field –

a sparrow being a sparrow.

So vulnerable…to be just what you were created to be…

how freeing.

 

True Life is found within this vulnerability…

this authenticity.

Real Life and freedom are revealed among the open, exposed, naked…

found, too, in my own barren fields.

 

Open, exposed, naked…

I wait for a sparrow to sing –

Knowing, in part, what the waiting means.

Knowing that I cannot know all that waiting will bring…

 

A Chickadee lights on the seedling in front of me…

light on a slant…

I sit – the late afternoon sun kisses my face;

backlit cerulean clouds lingering, encircled by a transcendent halo.

It is late September and the sun falls on the earth at a slant.

Angled light bathing golden asters, hummingbirds, butterflies…

sweet, Holy Light.

 

I become very aware – sunlight saturates me as well.

 

And as Light on a slant does,

deeper questions are revealed –

Will I risk grieving the loss of who I think I am

for the truth of who I truly am?

Or is remaining in defined, confined aspirations

worth the loss of what I most desire?

So many words…

So many words being spoken today…

In Ireland, Iran, North Korea, Netherlands, Russia, Rwanda, Malaysia, Mexico, Bahamas, Burundi, Kenya, Kuwait, United States, and United Nations…

In courts, in state houses, in congress, at the White house, in politics…

Within religious communities, within businesses, and within schools…

On TV, on radio, on social media, on our phones…

In my house, in my family, in my head, in my heart…

 

I wonder if there is as much listening?

I hope so…