Now

Now there is a new busy-ness in my life and a certain joy that I'm not sure how to articulate. I am astonished at how the pieces of my life are falling together. I've made peace with the faith of my childhood and am noticing a subtle but powerful shift in my spirituality. I have a job that I like. It is casual and uncertain but that suits my style of being just fine. There is no life or death intensity to it and it doesn't take all of my energy, but I am occupied with it and content.

But in the joy, underlying it somehow is a kind of sadness. Balancing again on a paradox. There is a tightrope stretched between other determined and selfish determined behaviour--I learned this in Life Skills years ago--and now the nature of this balancing point is a little more accessible to me. I see an example of this effortless, graceful, but intensely compassionate way of being in Jesus as he is portrayed in the Gospel of Luke. I love this man and all he represents, the ancient symbol of the cross uniting heaven and earth. I love him because I can.

To love is the greatest privilege of our existence. I used to grasp at love like a drowning person. I never truly believed in it but I needed it like oxygen. My need for love was greater than any one could fill,and the intensity of my longing only drove people further away. I despaired of love and often of life.

But the kind of love I am experiencing lately is something different completely. It is allowing me to reach out in a new way to others (but I have so much yet to learn about community and celebration, comforting the mourners, actively listening).

I need to continue to discipline myself to not succumb to anxiety or guilt. A big part of my mental and emotional work now is cyphering out hope from anxiety and guidance from guilt. They are not the same at all. But all these words seem to need new definitions. Hope is not really expectation, because I know the consequences of expectation. It is more like a marriage of acceptance and joy. It is possible to hope when I know that what I hope for is available here and now. But to approach God in this way is to walk the tightrope. It requires a lot of trust and release.

Guidance is also only available in the present. It is easily distinguished from guilt for it always comes with sufficient energy to do whatever needs to be done, while guilt immobilizes.

The result is that, although there is still much that is hard to digest,life seems a bit more palatable than it did before. Perhaps I'm aquiring a taste for it.