Wishing Wells, Waterfalls and Wings

     With age comes awareness and a major awareness of mine has been that the easier, softer way to live is to go with the flow. Since I spend much of my day living in my head, awarenesses usually take root as a mental process. The next step is giving my thoughts a voice. This is the messy part, moving from the drawing board to the dry runs. It is where the I meets the Other. It is relational. Not a strong point for me. I'm not a multi-tasker by nature and relationships require the ability to listen deeply by giving full and undivided attention, followed by reflection, interpretation, feedback and clarification. Once through the loop is challenging enough but the key to success is refinement through repetition. Rarely do I hear during the clarification step, "That's exactly what I meant. You've got it now!" So around I go again only this isn't a case of practice makes perfect. Each relationship experience is unique. It has a different lesson to teach. It doesn't lend itself to a streamlined efficiency. What awareness is teaching me is that my process is my life's rhythm.  It's my own flow that I need to go with. Who knew? All these years I thought "Go with the flow" meant moving in harmony with the majority, moving with the herd. I was never comfortable in the herd but move too far towards the edge, outside the herd's protection, well then you are just prime for the picking.  The image that comes to mind is trying to walk in a large crowd exiting a sporting event or a concert or a church service lasting longer than the allotted 30 minutes on a game Sunday. Everyone is moving in the same direction but lose your footing and you are herd fodder. If you stay seated until the aisles have cleared, it's steady as you go.
     One of the great benefits of Blogging - showing up on the page and finding yourself in the middle of an AHA moment. Think I'll go with my flow, honor the moment and get cozy with that Inner Presence. A little reflection time might reduce further blather and seed my imagination.  To Be Continued...

God - Wall, Window or Fresh Air

     As a child, I knew my name, I knew my address, I knew my age, I could spell "ice cream" and I knew that I was a Catholic. Catholics went to heaven. Non-Catholics did not. God loved Catholics. God wanted to love non-Catholics but he could only love them if they became Catholics. God had a son named Jesus. Jesus was an only child. Jesus always obeyed his father and he never did anything wrong. He was kind of human but he was perfect, something humans could never be. His father sent him to save humans because we were sinners and did a lot of very bad things. If Jesus didn't suffer and die, humans couldn't go to heaven. Occasionally I forgot my address, sometimes I even forgot how to spell my last name or how old I was. Two things I never forgot were how to spell "ice cream" and what it meant to be a Catholic.
        From the universal Catholic Church point of view ours was a messy family. My mother was a German Lutheran who didn't see the point to hopping on the heaven train if she had to leave her grandparents, parents, brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews behind. Her youngest brother's wife, my favorite aunt, was Jewish. We never even talked about that. My brother married his high school sweetheart. None of the Catholic part of the family attended because it would have been a sin to attend the marriage of a catholic to a non-catholic. Apparently turning your back on a family member wasn't considered one of the bad things that kept you out of heaven but it was one my earliest memories of being confused and frightened. 
     I'm not sure if where I've been is as important as where I am on a spiritual journey but I've never looked back without a chip on my shoulder. I say I'm past it. I nobly proclaim forgiveness and understanding yet I still struggle to let go. The older I get the less I know, the more I doubt and the more I feel it's ok to sense a presence greater than myself within me that I can't explain. I'm more interested in keeping the connection than I am in understanding it. Today God is the fresh air, institutionalized religion is the wall and people are the windows. For now that's enough.