Love's Brutal Passage

"BEING MUST BE FELT IT CANNOT BE THOUGHT"

Forgive me for quoting Eckhart again -- but it just is right where I am.

I have a great many things on my mind tonight - today has been a day of grand discovery.  Enlightenment comes with a price and I've endured its passage into an understanding with brings forth some freedom.  Oh, what I have been through.

It isn't always my first nature to do what's in my best interest.  Hell, I don't always even know what's in my best interest.  More often times than not -- I make the wrong choice -- all the while believing in my heart -- (and hoping) I'm doing the right thing.  My greatest aim I suppose one could say is to be as real with people as I know how.  Especially people that are really important to me.  Even in this attempt, I screw up.  I "miss the mark".  Sometimes horribly.  Sometimes I suffer grave consequences.   Like I just did.  You know what is so amazing about this?  I am always attempting to do the right thing.  Most of the time.  I have this self-propeller inside of me that just won't quit.  Even if I mess up for a while -- it just resets.  I get right back up and am drawn towards wholeness again.

Risks, mistakes, failure, all of this things are catalysts for change.  If we never risk, or we never fail miserably -- we never grow.  I made an awful mistake -- in an attempt trying to understand something that was happening to me, I messed up and man did I bear the consequences.  It's okay, it could have been handled better - much better - however, I have arrived where I am supposed to arrive.  Not that I had help from where I should have had help.  There is nothing like having the foundation of your very being pulled right out from underneath you. That is exactly what happened to me these last few weeks.  I was brutally separated from the axis of my mental, emotional, and psychological well-being.  Much unlike a building having its foundation ripped out - yet, it's expected to still stand.  Just like before. The bulldozer came through - with little or no warning and ripped out my foundation (judging me while doing so) and leaving the building of my life to attempt to stand in its shattered state.  Oh, I was given a tooth-pick for structure relief.  No explanations, and no contract for reconstruction.

So.  I have been living in a wrecked, demolished, collapsed, unhinged, and empty place.  There has been more shocks, more leveling, and it has been a very destitute place to reside.  When you thought your structure was built with love, trust, and acceptance -- destroyed is a difficult transition.  It is a shock that reaches the depths of your soul.  The thing is that the bulldozer could have been diverted, it could have been called off.  If only there had been some understanding and acceptance of how people heal.  The process by which they can understand, accept and grow.

Healing is one of the most beautiful things I have ever (and will ever) witness.  I and I say this with all humility - have been so divinely blessed to have witnessed the healing process - right before my very eyes.  It is of the miraculous.  It is indescribable.  The closest that I could ever get to its majesty would be if we could actually see a flower bloom.  An at that - I butcher it.  It is ineffable.  When I speak of such things, I am so filled with gratitude for the gifts that God has given me.  Those times in my life that I will cherish until the day that I die.  But there is also in me, a healing place.  A place that is yet so wounded.  So wounded because of the brutality of these last few weeks.  I have been left brutally alone.  Because of a mistake, I made trying to understand.  Trying to understand something I felt that I did not fully understand in its transition.

Love is a delicate an beautiful thing.  It is often confusing and easy to misunderstand.  Love in my life has always had an equal and a frightening slice of hatred combined.  This is what you get when you grow up with an unstable parent.  Things are NOT what they seem.  Not at all, and you'd better understand that first and foremost.  It makes it really hard to trust what you feel.  Even when you "think" you are certain.  As strong as I am now -- I still get that stuff wrong.  Especially when it comes to love.  If anything will confuse me, it's love.  I am actually kind of afraid of it.  If I am honest.  Taking risks in that arena - is paramount for me.  I don't do it very often.  It's quite rare.

What I have discovered is that for love to exist several elements have to be present.  If a person is so inclined and all of these elements are in place- if love is allowed to establish itself safely, to be built, flourish, as well as grow - it abounds.  I've been privy to such environments in my life.  Not as long as I perhaps would have liked, but we ultimately receive what we're meant.  Loving people has been a challenge in my lifetime.  As I have healed so has my ability to give and receive love.  It is still at times confusing for me and I get tangled up.  I know that it is because I feel things so deeply.  I can feel the love that others have for me, as well as the love that I have for them.

The absolute most beautiful gift that I have received up until this very moment, is the ability to love myself.  It's been bought with great pain.  There is still much pain.  But I do understand.  I understand that I had to feel it into being. Sometimes it is through loves witness that we see and learn to love ourselves.

Thank you, Father, for answered prayer.