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.

 

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?

Red-Winged Teacher

Hello my red-winged friend.

Here for our daily visit –

you on your post;

me sitting beside you.

 

You welcome me to your home with a song –

your hospitality soothing;

your flight beautiful across the meadow.

 

Teacher too –

landing on the thinnest of reeds;

trusting that you will be held;

closing your wings, giving up flight.

Now balanced –

trusting yourself to something greater;

trusting yourself to the nature of created order without question.

 

Tell me again your story.

Sing to me again your song.

Teach me again how to trust.

breath . . .

It was 2:30 a.m. when I arrived;

just hours from her last breath.

 

Her chest rising and falling in nomadic rhythm –

a mirror of the relationship we shared – joys, struggles, oblique love:

some known;

some unknown;

some still to be discovered.

 

She did not move, eyes closed –

peaceful other than her dissonant breaths;

a peace that had alluded her in her living.

 

But not quite yet –

her journey toward Union,

still earth-tethered.

 

So we sat vigil . . .

waiting . . .

What else could we do?

Just being with . . .

Being with us.

 

Silence interrupted by occasional conversation –

with each other – seeking some normalcy;

with mom – seeking to help an emancipation,

“It’s okay to go mom.

We love you.

I know dad is getting excited.

Your family is waiting…”

 

When breath, life, and love

becomes so clearly focused,

I do not know what else to trust but Intimacy.

I do not know another to trust

but the One in which we all have breath.

 

To live within this kind of trust is a constant craving.

 

Then, watching, I saw mom begin to trust the One holding her.

Breathing rhythmically now.

Breathing with the One.

Slowly bringing her breath into One.

Until her body had no need for earth’s confining atmosphere.

 

Now her spirit breathes pure Ruah;

breathing in the One who first gives breath.

Now the “i” breathes within “I AM”.

Open Windows…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tell myself, “don’t open that window –-

others will see the darkness within.”

But I deceive myself –-

I am really afraid of what my own eyes will see.

 

So keep the windows shut;

bolt the doors;

nail them all shut.

So much energy exerted

trying to harness the dark side of me;

my True-Self  sacrificed on this altar.

 

 

Who knew the ordinary would invite the extraordinary?

an analogy opened before me . . .

a parable poised for the telling . . .

 

Do I dare peer into the vacant darkness?

Do I risk looking beyond framed obscurity into a greater reality?

What monsters will unleash their furor?

Pain?

yes –- if I want to know the deep wonder of fully living . . .

Fear?

for sure –- a sign of venturing intimacy . . .

 

It is hard to turn loose of what we know –- of what is comfortable -–

even if what we hold close is killing us.

 

But now with doors flung open, light shines where it had not, exposing:

Joy . . .

flowing like a shallow stream at first . . . but streams eventually become deep oceans;

Unknowing . . .

a perpetual adventure in trusting Mystery;

Love . . .

deeper than we have words to speak -–

for ourselves, for others,

for the Mystery we are learning to trust.

 

And this is all my soul asks –-

courage, strength, and grace to peer into the darkness and truth of who I am;

trusting there is abundant life on the other side, and maybe,

even within the darkness itself . . .

A candle’s worth of Light…

 

 

 

 

 

Within the dissected souls we carry,

there is a deep longing . . .

thirst for a drop of wholeness;

craving for a healing salve that soothes the spirit;

hunger for a peace to drench an anxiety-parched inner landscape . . .

 

We light a candle . . .

familiar words come —

“Light keeps shining in the dark,

darkness has never put it out.”

 

we take another step into a deeper knowing —

a candle’s worth of Light is all we need . . .

Walking Along Borders…

 

 

 

 

We walk along the borders of our living,

not really living;

but trusting perceived securities that barriers cloak as promises…

 

But where are our deep longings calling us?

Why do we find ourselves hanging around the borders of our lives?

What is beyond what we cannot see?

Really living?

What Now?

 

 

 

 

 

 

What now?

now that we’ve come to end of who we think we are?

now that we are exposed –-

souls opened from suffering’s reality and love’s intimacy?

now that we find ourselves, again, on the ground –-

where knowing the earth’s muddy texture has become too common?

What now?

 

We get up again.

Now we begin the journey . . .

now we lean into Love –- letting go of what was . . .

now we fall into what is and what will be . . .

now we allow ourselves to be embraced by Hope

now we relinquish ourselves into Life . . .

Trusting in Trust…

 

this swirling vortex is deceiving –- truly beautiful . . .

But I feel the force of

dark energy . . . sucking me in;

No relief –- the pull is constant.

Does it let up?

 

The window of hope seems to open at times –-

clear sky . . . clean air;

But old voices tease –- filled with venom . . .

looking to rush in for a quick bite.

Others are more cunning –- mingled with hope . . .

like a parasitic vine –-

creeping up the fibrous foundation that brings life;

longing to pull me back into the black hole . . . into nothingness.

 

I remember whispers of wisdom speaking the breadth of life –-

the journey filled with horizons, black holes, trails into the unknown,

briar infested pathways, companions along the way,

light that warms the soul . . .

 

This moment is not the whole . . . but live this moment I must –-

In this moment, when venomous voices rise . . .

when the nothingness of a black hole seems imminent –- I trust;

Allowing the long view of this trust to nourish hope . . .

And maybe that’s all I can do for now –- trust in trusting . . .

 

 

 

 

Defining moments…

 

 

There are those moments when,

to find yourself in the place you want to be  –-

you have to jump . . .

 

Those moments . . .

poised . . .

muscles tensed . . .

fear, excitement, anticipation, doubt, courage pulsing . . .

 

Those moments when the heart and mind race . . .

Do I dare trust . . .

myself?

What awaits to catch me?

 

There are those moments when,

to find yourself in the place you want to be  –-

you have to jump . . .

 

Not with abandon — although it may feel so . . .

but with a firm, trusting embrace of the unknown.

 

May hope give courage to let go . . .

May faith embrace doubt,

And may trust tame the fear that screams within –-