I trust God's ability to heal me over time more than I trust my ability to hustle through time. I get lost in the hustle. I do not always find my way in the resting but I at least know that I will not miss the sign that says, "CHOOSE LIFE. SOMEWHERE THIS WAY."
And so, I have not wrote in a few weeks nor have I even stitched much of two seams together in a garment and yesterday, I rescheduled my aerial class on behalf of this body that has been desperately calling out for help...again. Is it depression or is it just that life is so oppressing?
I know this act in the play; the scene where I hustle to prove, push through the pain, and help everyone else around me to find rest and play, yet, in the faint glow left of my day, I am exhausted, disconnected, alone, and anxious.
Oh, trust me; this screenplay I know by heart. The endless guilt talks in my head, "Well, you are not a mother or a CEO or a...[xyz] so do not complain Laura. People have it worse than you. Be grateful for what you do have."
These moments are followed by the friction of God's voice that gently says, "Your pain is still valid."
I know this road; it already has a hole. Why do I continue to walk around the hole & risk falling in? Why do I not pave a new path forward?
The truth is, it takes a village to pave a new path forward. When they say "God only needs one," my eyes roll so far into the back of my head that all I can see is what is behind me and it is darker than dark there. I do not want to go back but I cannot afford to get the dreaming wrong this time; in the name of God & Love, I trust that I will succeed but man, the trials are getting louder, the construction crew is getting impatient, and the weather will never cooperate.
What is behind me? Many times I tried to lead this new way of living but failed endlessly and somehow ended up alone each time. The lights went out on those dreams. Even some of those connections that I thought, "Together, there is nothing we cannot do!" have beamed out on misunderstandings and undoubtedly, me rushing the process; always rushing the river: please forgive me.
Do not get me wrong, I do believe God put us on this Earth to create, but not necessarilly to produce for the sake of "more" but for the sake of "additionally so."
Everything is a possibility but it does not mean it has to be produced this instant,or ever.
There is always a pressure to get more done but never a desire to just BE and appreciate what has already been done.
I have the image of an art museum in my mind. Bare and open spaces, with only the art created for that very moment to gaze and rest upon; you find yourself in a place that truly resembles the art of simply noticing.
Some people cannot stand art musuems. Like bees, they buzz in, through, and out quicker than I can say "buzz."
Are we trying to bee like that in this lifetime? Always on task? Always working? Never appreciating? Never slowing down to sit in our bodies with no agenda?
By doing more, adding more, hypothesizing more, and analyzing more, we are missing out on God's currrent creation, and the art of appreciating what is enough.
I do not mean that we should be okay with witnessing injustices and never fighting back or that we ought to just walk through life on autopilot as if we cannot make a change.
I actually have no idea what a world of restful-less anxious-healing from trauma with stabilized nervous systems-people would look like but dreams often come as notions and feelings; little pixels of hope waiting to be formed like a child pre-conception.
I know, I know; my head is up in the clouds trying to bring down a reality that does not quite fit. Like trying to put a square block in a circle hole, it is frustrating to know that as a human race we so desperately need to put more rest where performance and production are the leading stars but we just cannot find the space...
What now? Keep running exhaustingly with the herd? Miss out on Earth because I am so anxious on how to fit in or how to make Earth better?
I am learning that sometimes you have to consciously be that actual space; the art museum, the square hole, the newly paved road & no matter how long the construction takes, you just have to stay with it.
Right now, that construction feels painful and full of guilt and shame but consider this fact: all of the greatest movements began with the thorn before the rose.
So it feels pokey and sharp and uncomfy to be the opposite of what society thinks living is. I constantly feel I have to defend myself and then I remember a quote I heard from Shannon Everette: God doesn't need more copy cats, he needs the LIONS.
So here I am, hand on my stupidly optimistic yet full of pain lion heart,endlessly dreaming of a life where there are more genuine connections than transactions, more sitting with the children than dragging them through the to-do lists, more reclaiming the land back to the Creator, and more treating life as if it is an art musuem; bare and open, full of possibility and more creations, but also, simply enough as it is.
