We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot "Little Gidding"
there is something about this- our endings and our beginnings and how they are related and where we find ourselves. and about exploration internally and externally.
it is almost the end of the year. the beginning of another. the world moves and spins so quickly now, faster with each year. i am here, or there, or elsewhere in my beginning.
i am here in new england, the place of my beginnings, a cold december night 44 years ago, my birth organized- orchestrated so my father could be present. my squeezing out was squeezed in between on-call schedules. my birth, like all births everywhere, organized and orchestrated by the Divine One who knows the number of hairs on my head, the number of my days, and how my days will be spent- before even one of them began.
God is so far ahead of us. i can't imagine knowing what my children's days will be like- it would be too much- today is enough. if i knew of their suffering, what lay ahead of them, i think i would do anything in my power, which isn't actually much at all, to prevent it. to save them from it. to avoid it. protect from it. take an alternative route, or at the very least, prepare for it. but God allows it. it's part of our journey, it's part of our exploration. it's even essential to get where we are going. we can live very deeply inside, or we can live superficially, either way, we are still breathing and eating and sleeping and even loving. but real searching, real seeking, real exploration, if we are willing to go there- brings us deeper and closer to God and the warmth and truth that is there- closer to complete love. that path will have suffering, i'm pretty sure it's a guarantee.
we spend a lot of time and money on running from our suffering. and if we can't out run it, we try to push it away or ignore it. we don't want to feel it and we certainly don't want it to stick around for long and we really don't want to share it. it reveals our nakedness. it shows our wounds and our vulnerability- those things that we are good at pretending no one else feels- those things we think we should hide because we are alone in them. but we are not. we all share it, we all know what it feels like, even Jesus knows- because real love, is feeling it and knowing it and staying with people who are in it.
maybe the place where we end, is the place with in ourselves where we began, before the world took bites out of us. before we fell and scrapped up our knees and took bangs on our heart, and drummed things into our minds- false things, about who we think we are and who we think others are and who we think God is.
i want to return to there. i want to take what is given to me on the path- to embrace it, even if it's uncomfortable or painful or feels like it's too much. i want to be available, to be aware of what i'm feeling and seeing and coming to know. i want to show up for myself with compassion and gentleness. i want to be real, authentic, and whole and open.
maybe these years, however many we have, is an exploration that leads us home to that safe internal place where we started from- before life happened. and maybe from that place of centering, of stillness, of experiencing the Love that made us, we can then reach out for each other.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot East Coker
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
T. S. Eliot "Little Gidding"
there is something about this- our endings and our beginnings and how they are related and where we find ourselves. and about exploration internally and externally.
it is almost the end of the year. the beginning of another. the world moves and spins so quickly now, faster with each year. i am here, or there, or elsewhere in my beginning.
i am here in new england, the place of my beginnings, a cold december night 44 years ago, my birth organized- orchestrated so my father could be present. my squeezing out was squeezed in between on-call schedules. my birth, like all births everywhere, organized and orchestrated by the Divine One who knows the number of hairs on my head, the number of my days, and how my days will be spent- before even one of them began.
God is so far ahead of us. i can't imagine knowing what my children's days will be like- it would be too much- today is enough. if i knew of their suffering, what lay ahead of them, i think i would do anything in my power, which isn't actually much at all, to prevent it. to save them from it. to avoid it. protect from it. take an alternative route, or at the very least, prepare for it. but God allows it. it's part of our journey, it's part of our exploration. it's even essential to get where we are going. we can live very deeply inside, or we can live superficially, either way, we are still breathing and eating and sleeping and even loving. but real searching, real seeking, real exploration, if we are willing to go there- brings us deeper and closer to God and the warmth and truth that is there- closer to complete love. that path will have suffering, i'm pretty sure it's a guarantee.
we spend a lot of time and money on running from our suffering. and if we can't out run it, we try to push it away or ignore it. we don't want to feel it and we certainly don't want it to stick around for long and we really don't want to share it. it reveals our nakedness. it shows our wounds and our vulnerability- those things that we are good at pretending no one else feels- those things we think we should hide because we are alone in them. but we are not. we all share it, we all know what it feels like, even Jesus knows- because real love, is feeling it and knowing it and staying with people who are in it.
maybe the place where we end, is the place with in ourselves where we began, before the world took bites out of us. before we fell and scrapped up our knees and took bangs on our heart, and drummed things into our minds- false things, about who we think we are and who we think others are and who we think God is.
i want to return to there. i want to take what is given to me on the path- to embrace it, even if it's uncomfortable or painful or feels like it's too much. i want to be available, to be aware of what i'm feeling and seeing and coming to know. i want to show up for myself with compassion and gentleness. i want to be real, authentic, and whole and open.
maybe these years, however many we have, is an exploration that leads us home to that safe internal place where we started from- before life happened. and maybe from that place of centering, of stillness, of experiencing the Love that made us, we can then reach out for each other.
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope of the wrong thing; wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot East Coker
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