If I am the one that moves away from God, then I have to be the one that moves back. I guess that is where I am now...moving back towards. Packing up the boxes of my self will and unrelenting ideas that think that they know better than God...the move may be imminent but I assure you that the willingness to move back lags...
Yesterday I sat in mediation for the first time in a long time...it felt good. Like it always feels good when I observe benevolence. I am not sure why I need to be the one that has this ridiculous morning practice, but apparently I do. I can spend all of my time railing against it or I can just do it and reap the daily rewards I get for moving towards something greater than myself...
I guess what I can say is that I am devout. I know of no one else that devotes so much time to talking to God and listening every damn day. I am sure there are many others who are more devout and I am not really trying to make a comparison, I guess what I am getting at is that I am busy over here in my quest to come to know God’s will for me better.
I won’t bore you with my ridiculous morning routine but it takes on average three hours. Three hours every day for me to get myself settled into the day with some fighting chance that I will get free of my will and seek some divinity...
I find myself asking - why? Why do I even need divinity? Because my will unaided and unskilled, will result in my own self destruction. So the motivation is high. I do not want to succumb to the perils of alcoholism or depression or maniacal highs...I want to live somewhere in the boring middle with a peaceful life, abiding with whatever comes or doesn’t. And today I want that more than I want anything else...
And that is why my spiritual needs get attended to first thing, every single morning. Because that is the only way that I get a fighting chance to be anywhere close to the middle.
So I pack the proverbial boxes of my self will, package it up and seal it over in order to make my move, yet again, back towards whatever bright luminary guides this life of mine. I move because it is cold and lonely when I step away. I feel the isolation and the lack of worth, grab me and steal me away...it always seems like something else...like some sort of magic show charlatan coercing me away from all that I know is true. The snake oils and potions seem like the easier, softer way, but they never are...and I find that repeatedly disappointing.
If I were smart, I would see that I can just stop buying it. I can just stop believing in all the other things that get conjured up in my life and remain steadfast to the source. But I don’t and at almost 26 years sober, I am pretty sure that I will exist all of my days like this, constantly in a game of tug-a-war with myself. Me thinking that what I need is over there and so I move. Then realizing that it is over THERE...so I move again. I always end up moving back, back to the place where this ridiculous morning routine sets me on good footing for the day. I find benevolence once again and I know that I am home.
And that is what I have learned from all the moving, God resides within. But God can also be found without me...and in fact, the best way to really ever get connected up is to become so completely and totally lost from yourself that there is nowhere else to go, nowhere to move, nowhere to seek except right down there in the hollowed out emptiness that resides in your own chest. And that once you move back, that places lights up like the 4th of July...vibrant displays of amazing feats beginning with another day on this side of the dirt. And even if that was all I ever got, it would be enough. Another day to try. Another day to work with all that I have been given. Another chance to see what I can give, bring, add to this life instead of only focus on what I can take, remove, subtract.
So I pack the boxes daily, every morning in the confessional of my bedroom, writing in the dark, while sipping hot coffee and a purring cat snuggles on my lap. And I find immense gratitude, peace and love...right here, right now...packing my boxes of self will onto the screen.
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