“Discipline and Mercy.”

 

D/Z,

 

 

I never quite got the balance of discipline and mercy, in the early days. I was too emotive, focusing on the way I felt about how you guys acted. That will always be the wrong approach. The only reason for discipline is to show the right path. It is not punishment. When you are younger, it may have a more demonstrative effect, but it must always be more about mercy than punishment. All discipline must come from love or it will have no lasting effect. We know when a blow is just hurtful, and we know when it is just a lesson.

 

I hope I show the mercy at the root of discipline. Yet, you must understand that I am human, and I need discipline and mercy too. I will not always live up to the things I say. My words and actions will not always end in love. I am learning to be human, just like you. Yes, to be human. Part of being that is learning through failure how to live in the light.

 

So, I hope you grant me both discipline and mercy from my various flaws.

 

 

 

 

“Answers.”

 

E,

 

 

Life will test you. This is the way it goes. It will ask you questions and throw up difficulties. I hate to be so general, but this is true. It will come in specific colours and will speak to your specific flaws and strengths from time to time. It will demand you have answers. You will not. Do not be sad about this. No one has the answers. Everyone has to make them up as they go along.

 

The true answer to things is usually in character and not in action or words. These two might feature but they must always come from a position of character. It is not simply what you say or do that matters but the things behind both. Who you are and why you are that way.

 

The answers will come from being not from acting good.  No one can act long enough to not let their true character show. And we do not stand on our own character in this. We are fallen and flawed creatures. We belong to the Christ and we stand on who he is. From fall to fall. We rise up in his glory. That character, of love above all and in its true form, is the answer to everything.

“The Joy will last forever.”

 

Z,

 

It may not seem like it many times but there is joy in the world. There are things that lift the heart out of the dark and into hope. They exist, side by side, with the pain we see and feel and try to avoid as best as we can. It is not a coincidence that the spirit is broken and then the body fails or the other way around. We need to feel a physical sense of safety in the world as well as a spiritual sense of worth. Joy is both.

 

For many around the world, this is elusive. Physical conflict, high crime rates, poverty and political instability, the big hot button issues of our day, can place the body in harm and the mind in terror. The joy in the world can be fleeting, in moments that pass and make the pain even worse, a mockery of the light and lightness of things. This world is often the dreadful long night of the soul.

 

I promise you that this is not the end of the story. The joy to come will last forever. This trembling is the last throes of the pain of all the world. Nothing is cured until all are cured. There is no world peace, equality or well being without every single soul living in these hallowed states. This is the promise that God makes. The light is here. Things are winding up. The pain has been intense, but it is passing.  The joy will last forever.

“This time will be different.”

 

D,

I need to tell you about failure. The fear of this naturally occurring phenomenon has been the bane to joy for many a human mind. It is the thing we are meant to tell you to avoid. This is, of course, a stupid plan. You will try to avoid it, but you will fail.  Life is a series of failures interrupted by a spurt of pyrrhic victories in-between.

 

This does not mean that life is failure. I know it sounds like it. It means that our definitions of failure are wrong. Failure, in the real sense, is a lifelong trajectory and not isolated events or not getting what you want. Failure is about character not economics. It is about sportsmanship not about trophies and awards. It is about the meaning of life not making meaning out of mountaintops created in your mind.

 

Of course, every generation will tell you this: this time it will be different. It will not be. The world has been the way it is from the dawn of our time. The light has been this bright and overwhelming since it was called out from the dark. Eternity has been stable and unflinching forever. Your life is an eternal thing. It is bigger than failure. It is more serious that fleeting success. But any isolated stab at winning is futile. Your life as a whole, crafted in character and doing what is right, is already a success.

“All Stories Matter.”

 

E,

 

It is sad that we have to still push the idea that people are of equal value. That one life does not and cannot matter more than another. It is a hard thing to comprehend but you cannot live in ignorance of the world you live in. If you are going to be a relentless do-gooder or a person of faith, or some sort of light in the world, then you must be well aware of the dark.

 

A person of colour in the western world, is more aware of these racial differences than those of us born on the African continent. We know it in tribes, and they know it more in race. Both offer the same unhelpful delusion: there is something inherent that makes one-person superior to the other, from made up language and culture, because all culture and all language is basically made up to carry group values, to the way your pigmentation works out. It is sad but true.

 

The best wat to look at it lies in the idea that all stories matter. We ought to listen to each other and learn where the other comes from. We cannot erase thousands of years of cultural mishaps and racial crimes. What we can do is acknowledge that there is nuance in the world, no human being is the bastion of good or the epoch of evil. We are started in our prejudices and preferences, but we do not have to die there. We can listen to each other. And learn other stories.

“Work”

 

H,

 

 

We face Mondays with a certain trepidation. It reminds us that most of our life is made up of work. Only very few people on earth get to do what they love or like, what they call their “passion” or “calling” as their vocation. Most do not earn enough to make the things they love into a career. The world calls anything that you do not make money from a “hobby”.

 

I do not mean to go on another anti-capitalist rant. Work can be good and challenging and fruitful for all. I have grown through work and found muscles I did not know I had by lifting weights I did not want to. We do not know enough about our own souls to limit ourselves to do only the things we love; in work or in anything else. The discipline will help us, always.

 

The more pertinent point is to seek wholeness. To make everything you do part of the joy you seek. To learn all the disciplines you need to do your work well and in joy is the aim of all who live in the light. We must drop the complaints. The hand to the plough is always sacred. To be in the creative process of making something or delivering a service can be a powerful thing. We must adjust our minds and heart. We live in holiness now. Everything should fall into that.

“These bones are fading.”

 

M,

 

Forever and ever and all that, but these bones are fading. I am older than I have ever been. Middle life is creeping in, for me and not for you. I am already on medications I would not have imagined a decade before; I have had my heart checked and my weight nodded at and my blood pressure frowned at. I am not even forty, but the bones are telling me their brittle tale. Some of it is lifestyle, some of it is genes and some of it is just growing old.

 

I know this is not sounding romantic, but I intend it to be. My fatalistic worldview is challenged by our deep and ongoing love story. The bone and marrow I intend to suck out of life all exists in your eyes and in your arms. Everything comes down to facing life together and pushing that eternity away for the exclusive sense of loving you on earth. It does not just make life bearable; it makes it enjoyable, full, desirable, and beautiful all at once.

 

I know it often does not feel this way. We are fed that love is incredible stories. Love is just lying in bed. Love is just drinking tea. Love is trying to express love quietly, so the baby does not wake up. Love is working on budgets and going to the market to break them. Love is arguing, veins bulging and being afraid that you have gone too far. Love is forgetting that the bones are going because, in these moments, only eternity is on my mind.

 

“Newness.”

Z,

 

It is important to always lean into the newness of things. You have to enjoy the idea that you don’t know what you are doing but you will in time. Do not let the necessary nervous energy of a new day, a new school, a new job, a new page, or a new environment go to waste. There is no shame in learning, certainly none in making mistakes and being honest in doing so is where all the fun is.

 

I know we are expected to be perfect. This is a lie. We are expected to pick things up quickly. This is often a lie. We will learn at our own pace; sometimes it will be slow, sometimes it will be quick. The thing to remember is that we do it well. Our own pace is always good enough, eventually.

 

One day, everything new will become old or will pass into custom. Remember this, as you go through the process. First, as earlier stated, so you enjoy the moments. And second, when it is hard, remember that novelty will become better by practice. The second part is hope in hard times and the first part is just the pure joy of life and experiences.

“Something Beautiful.”

 

D,

 

The competition in the world has robbed us of the great beauty of being ourselves. It has the effect of making all of us line up in the same way and present with the same false efficiency. The chaos of the universe makes us long for perfect lines and concise explanations. The seeming randomness of the universe makes us find order in petty achievements and empty epochs. We summarize life too much.

 

It does not have to be this way for you. Or for any of us, anymore. You are young enough to avoid this great pitfall of being too small or building the big things into puffs of gas and air. There is nothing the human mind can conceive as vast and beautiful as the universe itself. You are made of the same stuff. There is something beautiful in you and in everything else. You are made of eternal stuff.

 

This should trickle down into everything you do. You must not dismiss the drudgery of everyday life. You must not look down at a single soul or a single moment. There is something beautiful in you and in everyone else.

“Deeper than your sins.”

 

E,

 

There is always this received wisdom about the nature of the mistakes you are bound to make. Most of parenting is, unfortunately, caught up in trying to steer you away from our own common mistakes. You are quite human enough to find your own darkness. We really should just get out of your way and love you as best as we can. The rest will fold, eventually, into the eternal love of God.

 

The great debate about predestination also rolls into how you own errors will work out. Are we to fight against our worst inclinations or hide in the snow still it all passes? How do we balance grace against always falling? Where is the place of self-discipline? Does the wrinkle of earth matter to the light of heaven and the things that last forever?

 

I will say this: deeper than all your sins is the reason for them. There is the human stain that we cannot escape. For this we must be forgiving of others as well as ourselves, as much as we can. This does not mean letting evil thrive. Not in us and certainly not in others. It means understanding that evil is alive in all of us and the light of God is here to heal all that.

 

 We must open our hearts and lives to it. Or we fall more into the mire. But this is not about one obvious fault. It is about all of our nature. We are fallen. Yet, we will rise again. Do not despair. The light is always winning against the dark.

 

 

 

“43.”

 

H,

 

So much has happened since we last had a letter between us. There are upheavals and there are upheavals. We do not know how we will survive this dark moment and we do not yet fully understand what it means for our future. Yet, these feelings are transient because all of life is transient. The danger passes or reaches it climax. If we are still here after the storm, the pressure recedes, and we are back to normal. We form back into our normal shape with only the odd scar or wrinkle from past experience. Yet, each scar or wrinkle can hold deep trauma.

 

Our only hope is in the eternal stain. We know these things are temporal events that will be unfolded in time. This will make sense in the things that come after. We will not be stuck in despair forever. Anger is easy, revenge is falsely satisfying but resolution is hard to get at and will take all of time. This is the eternal stain.

 

We can never fully understand the fallen world. It is not home. It is not home for anyone. We have these reminders that life is not perfect and, for most people, is not even good. The gift of it is that we can feel, experience, confront and learn. We can reach the depths of ourselves and the heights of our pursuits. The idea that we might live forever and go over and over again, these things we face today. Everything will be resolved. We must never forget this. Everything will be resolved.

 

May the souls of all our dearly departed, rest in this perfect resolution.

Living as neglected as salt and light.

 Dear Z,

I decided to go back over the sermon on the mount. It had been a while since I read it and I missed the new testament classics. So, I started there. It has some of the most beautiful consecutive chapters of scripture, surely some of the most quoted.

Right from the beatitudes, I began to notice something I had never quite given my full attention. This entire sermon is Jesus directing us to live as plainly, as humbly, as simply as he does. He blesses the poor in spirit, the meek, the mournful, people who we might usually disregard or avoid.

He calls for simplicity in the ways we approach the law. Rather than be an excuse for mental gymnastics, he simply says: once it is in your heart…Once the thought crosses your mind it requires forgiveness.

In prayer too, he seeks simplicity. This is something I have struggled with for years. The part of my brain that fancies itself a writer is always wringing itself dry, trying to find new and creative ways to express myself to God. But on occasion, when my heart overflows and I simply dwell in that, the prayer feels so much truer and more peaceful. Sometimes, there are no words at all.

The part of simple living that catches everyone’s eye, for better or worse, is serving God and money. That one we can all easily access. That one seems clear enough to understand and return to and there is an inexpressible comfort in knowing that the God who keeps all the wild things safe and beautiful is in charge of your care too.

All this simplicity reminded me of Jesus asking us to be like little children. Now that I have kids of my own, or perhaps because I’m a little older myself, it makes sense to me that the simplicity of children will be the benchmark. Children rarely hold a grudge, rarely worry about a moment ahead of the ones they presently occupy. They are truly pure of spirit. That is all he wants for us; to live honestly in the moment and forgo all worries. I want that too.

Like salt and light who might be neglected or disregarded but who are no less important as a result, that is who Jesus sees us as, who he calls us to be. 

 

ReplyForward

“Promises.”

 

M,

It changes over the years, but the promise remains the same. We become different, we fight, we roll over for each other, we have children and then we try to forge life out of the steel embrace of reality. We still make these promises to stay. To work at everything and to face anything together. Will we ever live up to it?

 

There is no perfection in the fray. Being human is full of failure, of failing down, of being made whole in one sense and then losing hold of the other senses. It takes us a lifetime to learn what will work and what will not. It will take all our lives to rework our preconceptions and the profundity of our fall. We make the promise still, to do it together.

 

For each it is different. The struggles are twain. The meeting of minds comes not in having the same experiences or quirks but in reaching for that very same thing: an everlasting love that redefines life into meaning. The eternal call and shadow of the other country. Love, as it is supposed to be. Always.

“Dancing.”

 

D,

 

The days are always full of something. You will get used to it. Every day has a different vibe and different challenge. Regardless, you need to dance. Sometimes to music, often to life and always in your natural state. There is no need to fake or force the moves. Dancing is always about being who you are.

 

This is never any reason to not be who you are. I don’t even mean this in the moral sense of right and wrong. I mean the quirks; the walk or talk or inflections or stutter or tastes or love for weird sports. It is all part of how you dance. It does not mean you will always be happy, but you will always be you. And therein lies the joy.

 

And this does not mean you are perfect. You are and will never be perfect. That is a mirage. You might aspire to perfect acts or live for the perfect act, but you will only ever be yourself. And that, my friend, will always be enough.

“Coping.”

 

H,

  

We are just coping with what is in front of us. There is nothing here to really exhilarate, really set the soul on fire forever. The world has nothing for the soul wrapped up in God. Its pleasures are mostly a distraction from the divine. We might reach the heights of its acclaim or the depths of its derision. In both places, we face the same absurdity, the same ennui, the same “it is not nearly enough” and the same feeling of deep loss.

 

The great Van Morrison sang: “When will I ever learn to live in God? /When will I ever learn? /He gives me everything I need and more/ When will I ever learn?”  It is a psalm for our modern times but the story of all time. If we buy the big premise of God, then life arranges itself in one way. We know there is nothing else out there, no elation and no defeat, no permanence and no rising, no pride, and no hustle higher than the purpose of living in God’s heart.

 

Everything else is just coping. We are merely trying to live in spaces not meant for us and to be in the form and shape that makes no sense for us. This wine but not a little, this indulgence and not for good, this unnecessary fading into the night to find the thing we already have in lower product and with the expiry numbers up. We are coping but we really should not. The sea inside should be thriving, bellowing, shouting in joy and learning to live in God.

“These Old Voices.”

 

H,

The songs we love also speak to us of the ancient things. The things that will always be. Sometimes it is not even in words. A rising note can take its place in an open heart and, somehow, alter feeling. In the most hopeless of times songs can tell us that things pass. They can bring together and elucidate the deeper things we all know exist but cannot somehow fathom.

 

I try to listen to these old voices, to find healing in the songs that offer that balm. Music has always been that for me: the expression of the human soul above the shackles that bind us to see hopelessness in a fallen earth. There is much to be hopeless about if we keep our feet on the ground. Thank God we were made to take flight.

 

There is no distinction for me. Genre is almost irrelevant. The truth of the human heart will speak. If a thing is said with the heart it will show. When the old “whiskey and guitar” god says: “I bargained for salvation/ and she gave me a lethal dose/come in, she said/I’ll give you/shelter from the storm”, I know exactly what he means. The eternal voice speaks in everything.

“A song for everything.”

 

H,

 

No one has truly gone to the depths of what music does to the human soul. We can only share the experiences we have with it. There is something about organizing instruments and sounds and words into something coherent. They create memories, make us feel things or express properly what we were really feeling, and, by sheer volume, they remind us of the power of love.

 

In those dark days, the ones I now look at as rest, music was all we had. We lived in the songs and there was a song for everything. The rain song was the main one. Mr. Purdy summed up the irony of the situation best by simply saying: I love the rain the most/when it stops.

 

What was it about that line? It felt that life was raining, and we were looking forward to when it stopped. I am not sure we got any better when it stopped but it was nice not to be wet anymore.

“The fleeting sense of being filled up.”

 

Empty cup and empty song

 

The powers that be and the things that were won

 

Through grime and cunning and honesty and money

 

The tap, the cup, the pot, the plate

 

Trying to fill up this uneven soul

 

With this fleeting sense of being filled up

 

 

 

The hunger, the lust, the power, the wrath

 

The idea of winning

 

This wrestling with the unseen angles and angels

 

To gain a name that might be forgotten

 

To go back home a little bit wiser

 

The road has not been the road less travelled

 

Yet it has been the greatest teacher:

This fleeting sense of being filled up

 

Tells us that there is always more

 

 

 

“Keeping Your Voice Up.”

 

E,

You seem unable to hide your opinions or not ask your questions. This is mostly a good thing and you should always keep your voice up. The only exception, to everything, is the context of love. I do not mean the complex web of feelings but the ordinary sense of treating people with the respect and dignity their inherent value demands. It is not enough to speak your mind. Your mind can be wrong. You must talk to spread light.

 

Your voice is important, but it is being refined. Knowing who you are is also knowing the bile that can be in you and the anger and the wrong. You voice is not the voice of God. Be humble enough to know this, to search your own heart and ask yourself what your voice is doing in the world.

 

Still, in all the refining, remember that you do have a voice. Original thought is always from God. We are merely cut off from source and so there are other things in the water. Your voice, in refinement, can be the voice of God. Let the change happen. But remember you are worthy of all your opinions.

“Loving Now.”

 

H,

We only have the present. There is nothing else we have to actually take hold of. We can plan for the future, but we only live in the present. And that becomes the problem: we always forget to love the now. The past is full of nostalgia and the future is full of hope. The present is always the challenge.

 

Yet, the present is more important than the past or the future. The past cannot be fixed, and the future cannot be touched. Now, always now, is the time of our salvation. This is what we can redeem. Here is where our choices lie. We have to learn not only how to live in the now but how to embrace it and love it and find the joy in it.

 

Loving the now is integral to resolving the past and shaping the future.

“You have yourself.”

 

H,

It is possible and now desirable that we get comfortable in our own skin. You only have yourself. As the poet said: all that you have is your soul. It is important that you spend some time tending to it. We cannot ignore the deep cuts and woolly nature of our hurts. There might not be an easy resolution, but at least let us admit that we are wounded.

 

If we are too easy on ourselves, if we let things slide and let forgiveness reign over our foibles, then we must remember to give this same levity to others. We must remember to give this same grace to others. This will tell us much about our own behaviour. There is nothing that can teach us more about our conduct than being on the receiving end of the same darn thing. When we have to forgive these high crimes from others, we will learn the high cost of our own insolence.

 

Yet, let us remember, again, that we are only captains of this ship we call a soul. Our choices are ours alone and their consequences must be seen in the light of this: we must take responsibility for our conduct. Grace allows us to realize this, to learn this in the light and to become the sort of people we would like to love.

 

“Dealing with Grief.”

 

H,

 

I keep running away from my grief. I do not want to process it. Of course, I have the usual line I sell to myself: life on earth is temporal and the life to come is more important. I believe this and I know this is true. Yet, when I say it in this tone, I do not mean the eventual resolution of things. I am not trying to resolve anything. I am on the run.

 

Sometimes, when I am driving, I talk to the empty seat next to me. It is after some memory has bubbled up and I have something to say to someone who is not here anymore. It is the only way I deal with grief, and for a few moments, I am aware of them and I think of them and there is an eternal line running through it. I am smiling more than I am crying.

 

I am not sure there is one way to deal with grief. There are probably a thousand ways. We do not want to think of this. We are wiser when grief is happening to someone else. This wisdom, actually, is mostly the art of saying stupid things. In every instance, our grief and the grief of others, there is nothing better to do than give time and space and love. To ourselves, and to others.

“It will come around.”

 

H,

We cannot escape the truth: life is horrible on a daily basis for a lot of people. Too many. Life is also less than ideal for the majority of people on earth. This has nothing to do with modern life or ancient life. When you fix the things on top, the things beneath will begin to show. When you fix the material condition of the world, the spiritual condition of the world will become much louder.

 

It is like reality is this joke: fake obstacles put in our way, so we never look at the deeper things. The rat race so we never pause and ponder, ambition so we never listen to each other and sex on a pedestal, so we never look in love or act in love or make love with love. The lesson may come around but let us hope it is not too late.

 

It will not be late in eternity, but it may be late to live this life on earth a little bit fuller. We might waste our whole lives following these smoke signals that lead nowhere. I have a feeling that regret will mean nothing in the reality to come, but why suffer now? It is not enough to say, “it will all come around” when it is here right now.

“There is Nothing to Fear.”

 

Z,

 

The world is not a safe place for most people. Yet, there is nothing to fear. The things in the hot air balloon around all modern life may be able to crush the body or injure the spirit, but they are not permanent. They will fade in time and their power runs down and not up. There is nothing to fear out there, it will not outlast you, eternal soul.

 

So, we can do anything. We have been told this. We can become ourselves and that is enough to change the nature of the world. There is a light in you that present reality seeks to dim. This attempt to dim you comes in many forms. Information is presented as overwhelming, right and wrong are presented as relative and immediate gratification is presented as winning. Avoid all theses lies.

 

Remember the truth about yourself. You are a creature of the light made in the image of God. There is creation in your heart and re-creation also. This has nothing to do with pigment or shape but with soul and heart. Deep inside your being are all the secrets of the universe. Please, share.

“In the dark.”

 

H,

“In the dark.”

 

There is only one place the light inside you is made for: the darkness. Our light is only to shine in the dark. There is no other reason for it, externally. Being in the light will change your own life but it is not meant for only that. It is not complete until it does something to the world around you. It is not fulfilled until you put it into the world.

 

We always think of standing out as a call to stardom. It is a call to service. The divine conspiracy is not to make you a star but to make you part of the sun. It is about redemption for everybody. There will be no celebrities in heaven, no separations, no class systems, and no real heroes. It is simply being who you are made to be.

 

Yet, being who you are will change the world.

“To all who suffer”

 

H,

We are not here to sit out the intervening years between pain and glory. There would be no point to this whole enterprise if we were. After we have seen God, we are slowly to become like Him. There is no other path to take. We are to bear the light side of the divine burden and work in the enlightenment of His ways. We are made to be like this. We were always going to be disciples of the light.

 

We are called to all who suffer. To the poor, the brokenhearted, the widow, the orphan, the homeless and the despised. God is not interested in superstars. The gospel is stronger than the appearance we try to put on it to make it palatable. It reaches to the soul. It cuts through spirit and flesh. It has moved men and women for millennia by simply being itself. It does not need our colouring or our facade. It simply needs our open hearts and willing hands.

 

What do we have to offer all that suffer? All our effort and all our time, wherever we are planted. We are trees of God and candles and reeds and swords and disciples and apostles and followers and leaders, all in the light. We must remember this again. We are made to do different things with one aim: to be the light that shines brightest in the dark and the darkness cannot overcome it. The world has choked the seed, but this is fertile ground. The lord will work on the weed and tares. He knows we also suffer. He has put our healing in loving others, as well. We are sent out to be who we really are to everyone we meet. It is time to remember this, again, and act accordingly.

“Mistakes are not death.”

 

E,

There is this parental obsession with keeping children away from mistakes. I know there is a reason for this. We do not want you to feel pain or do something irreversible. On the later point, nothing is really irreversible, but some things are harder to bounce back from. We want to spare you all that trouble. And I am not sure we, as parents, will ever get off that pointless pedestal.

 

We need to really learn that mistakes are not death. They are just errors in judgment and the worst of them will be resolved in eternity. These things do not last forever. This is not licence to do as you like but the permit grace gives us that says we can recover from anything. There is never any need to sit on the floor and believe any verdict and any act or word or situation is the end of you. You are endless. Act accordingly.

 

 

“Limited Dreams About Yourself.”

 

H,

There is not a dream your mind can think up, that will appease the eternally wondrous person you were made to be. All our dreams are limited. All our wishes are rumblings. They are not fulfilled. They are not full. They are not everything we could possibly be. We see in figments and never the whole picture.

 

This is the problem: the limited can seem limitless. If you are born in a certain economic bracket, income becomes important and seems like a mountain to climb. If you are born to a high achieving family, leaving a mark becomes essential. We take our identity and drive from the circumstances around us and put on that garb, the idea that we must achieve these heights, or we do not live a life of purpose and meaning. We equate the rat race, the run to the finish, the imaginary ledgers of the world and the idea of “records” or “milestones” with eternal value.

 

Nothing we do on earth will be remembered forever. It is character that lives forever, not action. Some acts show character and some acts build character, but the discipline is not the point of mastering life. Life is always the point. It is like saying the training wheels on a bicycle are the most important thing or the bicycle is the most important thing. It is merely a means of transportation. You will enjoy the journey but going home is the more essential part.

 

 

“Pushing against pre-destination.”

 

H,

 

The biggest lie out there is this: we cannot be better than we are fated to be. It is the way we call moods destiny, and inclinations destiny, and likes destiny and how we are born, destiny. We crown all these things king and mix up the idea of being who we are in eternity to being who we are now, in this moment and for this time. We are not yet in the shape of God. This is what these damn exercises are about.

 

The whispers are the counterpoint to this grand idea. We need to push against it. We cannot accept this; we cannot go gently into the night. We must always look up and never down, forward, and very rarely backward.  We are not made to be only what our imagination can dig up. We are made in the mind of God.

 

This is why all these prescriptions for greatness are pointless at the end. The ones we find in books and flyers and books that should really be flyers. There is nothing there for us, but the old song remixed as the new stuff. It is man or woman telling woman or man what he or she can be. There is something more wonderful on the horizon. The truth of who we are in the fullness of time and eternity.

 

“Resolve.”

 

H,

 

I keep having these dreams about my childhood home. I do not know what this means. The past is always an unresolved mist. It colours so much of what we are dealing with today. The past is this whisper in your ear that keeps saying you cannot be different, that you are predestined to be this and only this. It is something to resolve in order to grow.

 

We are frequently being told to forget the past and not resolve it. This is a mistake. We cannot really move forward if we do not take the right steps away from the past. We cannot run from it. It will catch up. We must let it wash over us and emerge from it with our souls intact. This will not come easy. This is a lifetime of reflection. This is a lifetime of living in the light.

 

And resolution is not about anyone else. It is solely about you. Sometimes times it is acceptance, other times it is forgiveness, but it is always about perspective. It is about learning to see things in the light.

“The Country Inside and the Country Outside.”

 

H,

 

We always seem to be in two wars: one with the country inside and one with the one outside. We are battling with the troubles in our heart and the troubles around us. It is important that we win both but only one is truly up to us. We can make the right choices to open our heart to change and we can create a platform that gives other choices to the country we intend to serve. We do not control either outcome but only one is directly linked to our own choices.

 

It is important to know this distinction. Your heart comes first not out of selfishness but out of necessity. Out of the fixing of your own heart will flow everything else you have to give to the world. This does not mean we will “fix” all there is before we approach any external troubles. That will mean a lifetime of inertia. This means we need to be on the path of healing before we speak about healing. It means we must dwell in the light before we try to be a light. It means that we must be on the right road before we attempt to fashion a path for others.

 

I think we are, hiccups allowing. We gave in to something years ago that will always carry us home. We are not able to break free from our own freedom. We will live and die in this light. Nothing tastes and feels like it. Nothing compares to it. We remember it at our darkest moments, and we fall back to it once we hit the inevitable brick wall. What our country needs most is more creatures of the light. There are many like us: beyond gender, religion, creed, or ideology, who want to see things work for everyone. This is our family. These are the warriors that speak the things that are not as if they are and approach the dark with the healing, they themselves are experiencing. The country inside and the country outside will eventually align.

“Place of Birth.”

Z,

I hope you know that you were born in love. I know it is easier to be born in some countries than in others in terms of material opportunity. That is one level of being, but the other, deeper, and more useful level, is to be born into love. The place of your birth will always matter.

 

It is important to feel love.  There is a need in all of us to be accepted, to be understood, to be vulnerable and safe. It is my aim and hope that you always feel this way. It is the best environment we can give you. The growth of the soul is the most important part of growing up. You can always learn a skill, become proficient at making a living, and structure the life you are expected to live. I hope you go for more. I hope you are always on the path of healing your own version of the broken soul.

 

All of that is to come. You are here right now, and this is all that matters. You will have none of these present memories in your head, but I hope you always carry the love around you in your heart. To paraphrase the great singer, it was in love you were created and in love is how I hope you die.