My therapist and spiritual director has been subtly, gently, insistently encouraging me to look to inner experiences rather than outer realities for the wellspring of Being. It is quite possible that I understandably, but perhaps incorrectly, assume that experiences of inner resonance find their meaning in the details of the moment outside of me. If I lean in at night and smell the sweet scent of a child's freshly washed hair, I might be transported--or transformed--to the place of connection and wholeness. But it's not necessarily the hair or the scent that matters--it is the energy that springs forth within.
As I ride the most recent wave of questions about vocation (my most contemplated outer reality), this same therapist has suggested that I look to my day-to-day experiences of love and joy and awe....and watch what happens inside when I notice them. Do I cut off my breath--and thus the breath of the moment as well? Do the experiences lose their energy in comparison to another's? Do I share them or ponder them quietly? She asked for examples of love in my life--rapturous, glad to be alive love--that I might focus on and expand. A single image came to mind--I am at home, and I look out the window and unexpectedly catch sight of a bird flying across the yard....a common bird, a robin or bluejay. In brightest moments, perhaps a cardinal. As I described to her my image, I sighed with deep contentment.
Days later I arrived home later than usual from work, and Matt and the kids were already eating at the dining room table. I tossed my coat into the closet and dropped my keys in the drawer, rushing into the bathroom before joining my family for dinner. In the bathroom, I lifted the curtain for a quick glance at our backyard, and gasped as the brown and white feathered underside of a hawk passed right in front of me, momentarily taking my breath away. It lifted off from the ground as quickly as it landed, and settled on the branch of a tree on the edge of our yard. I called to the kids to come and see, and for minutes that stood beyond time, our entire family was gathered at east-facing windows watching the preening of our unexpected visitor. It flew from one tree to the next, and finally to the broken branch of a long-ago fallen tree before taking off for new feeding grounds.
Sacred scriptures have foretold this story in a hundred different verses, in a hundred different ways:
"Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." Matthew 7:7
"...For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord,
"Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future..." Jeremiah 29:11
"Lift up your eyes on high and see who has created these stars, The One who leads forth their host by number, He calls them all by name; Because of the greatness of His might and the strength of His power, Not one of them is missing." Isaiah 40:26
The source of Being--my being--is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, God, who intends far more for me than I imagine for myself.
