My unsuppressible and irresistible need that shadows all what my soul craves coexists in my heart. There it lies, just a scratch below social formalities, waiting to ambush all my conversations or arguments. Like a propeller silently working below a silent blue surface moving water behind me towards some future nirvana leaving my soul and flesh wrestling at the ship’s helm. Despite my understood speed and progress, the horizon seems unchanged and unattainable. Years disolve like passing whitecaps as doubt lures my attention from ahead to an above darkening cloud. I’m getting old too fast and tired too soon.
Until…blue smoke and the motor quits.The propeller stops leaving me to drift in seemingly aimless silence. Despite the ebb and ever-rocking flow of want, I am drawn to a new horizon deeper within me. My implosion inward is effortless. I am disrobing the many layers that onced defined me. Skin’s secret pride is relinquished to vanity’s gravity. Letting go of life’s ‘needs’ never felt so freeing…so easy. I slowly reduce to the size of that seed God joyfully planted in hopes of great blooms within the potting soil of my reality. Finally I am small enough to trust whatever may come. I have no reason not to trust for now my very survival is beyond my control. Trust now to dive into a claustraphobic rabbit hole that wraps and zips me up in its undersized sleeping bag. I wiggle downwards guided by shards of glimmering light slicing through a zippered smile of metal teeth. Despite the dark, the heat, the exhaustion, and nauseous fight to control my shallow breathing, I plop out onto a soft landing. I am embraced by an extradinarary light as reality’s cocoon disintegrates immediatley around me. I breathe in the fresh, cool air. Still processing the visual extravagance before me. My breath catches as I stand thunderstruck, a gawking statue at this possible reality, this Kingdom at Hand, this Christ within our midst. This vast expanse of a limitless invitation that I somehow know expects me. Here I ponder within my garden, this spacious room in a mansion, the joy of peace in an unexpected pasture. Love, is the very oxygen and light of my contemplatived marvel lifts and holds my heart and head like the holy ground beneath me. Timeless as a memory, love redefines its insatiable quest to reconcile my soul to God and to others in my path. Its wonder and awe squinting through this childlike view radiates it’s kaleidoscopic possibilities and beauty. This newfound treasure that’s somehow expected yet not quite understood. Drawn by the ever magnetizing virtue of true beauty, my gaze is held as a willing prisoner. Still more beckons as my peripheral vision catches a mysterious glow of invitation lighting a narrow path leading to an ordinary yet rustic wooden door. Nearly weightless to the touch, I push, and it swings back open into my reality. Returning out through my in door, everything seems familiar yet something is different… very different. My thoughts give life to mercy, comfort, and gratitude more often then not. Sometimes an unwelcomed yet familiar voice breaks through and like muscle memory reacting to fire, I’m doing things I did not want to do! Reconciling through forgiveness of myself, others, and in all, back to God, banishes that unwanted voice back to its reptilian mindset so my soul my re-engage the hidden dignity and lost hope awaiting it. I expect anything and fear nothing since I am not alone in my reality walking hopefully without tire nor shame. For grace nourishes my steps from hesitation. Grace is my soul whisperer to no longer choosing fight or flee but rather accept and help carry another’s weight as God accepted mine.
His,
Chris
Christopher Clody 