I stand and stretch. From my hand falls a piece of soft gray and white fur. I pick it up and rub it gently across my cheek. Gumba, I can almost feel your heart beating within this little tuft.
Oh, what a fine creature you are, my friend. What a magnificently fine creature. Your eyes look to me with such trust and warmth. I cannot believe there is no intent in that heart of yours. You are part of the dream — the dream I hold deep within.
The trees, the waters, the sun, the creatures that fly, swim, scamper, and walk — we are all filled with creation. In the bird's ascent and graceful motion I can recognize the hand. In the powerful movements of the waters ending with a splash on the shore I feel the source. With the bright green shoots of new life coming from branches so brittle they would snap the day before, I recognize the timing of it all. Today, today and not a moment sooner. Today, today and not a moment later. Today, today is the exact right time.
Today, let it spring forth. Today, let it take you over. Begin the run, spread your wings, run, run, run until you can lift your feet and soar into the air. Let the waters within you, beneath you, heave and commence their unceasing roll toward a somewhere distant shore. Today, hear your heart beat in rhythm with the universe. Then try to hold it back. Just try. Desire will overcome you and you will be unable to resist, unable to contain it. You will feel the rumble of life itself, for you will be standing on the ground of your being, the ground of all being.
From that day forward you will be unrecognizable even to yourself. You will respond in total obedience to the movement of life within you, just like the birds and the flowers and the oceans. That which transforms energy into matter — makes you move and breathe and live — will become undeniable.
This awareness is what fills me now — touching and terrifying me. What a fool I am to wish it be something I can define and dismiss.
The heresy trial was quick and to the point: "...and the third item on the agenda will be the meetings being held in the Garrisons' home." My shock at hearing this blurted out with no warning — not even a lessening of the smiles that greeted us one minute before — blew item one and two right off the agenda. I came to the meeting with a concern for the non-keeping of Lent in our parish. But good old item three changed the direction of those energies within me and became a turning point in my life.
There are no real villains in this story. My life was made up of lots of people — most of them well-meaning, some of them well-educated, many of them sweet-and-sour harmless sorts of people who all believed in something. They seldom questioned, or if they did, they put the answers in a place marked "for later" and went along with the group. Perhaps they never accepted their own experience as worthy — denying their own life's passion and significance in favor of membership.
I remember sitting, at age 10, in the darkened church on Good Friday with the family Bible on my lap. The print was so small, the church so dark, it made reading almost impossible. I was drawn to the experience. Something called me to the darkness, the quiet, the flickering candlelight, the stillness, the smell of incense, the thought of death. It all set the scene for something almost primitive...like the caves from which young boys emerged men.
I could not resist the call to experience life and death and great courage. I wanted to hang from that cross and see if I could stand the pain; to walk the path and see if believing in something made me unafraid of the outcome; to go right through the moment of final breath and see what it feels like to be dead. I wanted to have that whole intense and horrifying experience; to know what it's like to be filled with unswerving conviction from within.
I followed the call. Like Adam and Eve, I was driven by the desire to know more. I became the initiator of my own life, gave birth to myself, fell from paradise.
It was perfection sitting around the table at that parish council meeting. Centuries of infallible perfection. In spite of the warnings, I had tasted the forbidden fruit from the tree of life and the voice came thundering down upon me: "If what I hear you are saying is true, then I am concerned it is heresy. You are very visible in the parish and I don't want anyone to think you are speaking for the Church."
I was not banished from the garden. Rather than defend or deny my own experience, I left willingly.
Fear and sadness overcame me. For the first time in my life I was standing alone; not part of a community of faith. I was afraid God would not find me, for surely I, on my own, had no power or ability to make the ritualistic connection. But I would not be alone for long. Someone will call.
Someone who was a repeated and treasured guest in my home will call. Someone who greeted me as friend and accepted my kindness will call. Someone who blessed me for my works of mercy will call. Someone, surely, will call.
Gumba pressed against me and the warmth from his body took the chill from my heart. A tear trickled slowly down my cheek and dropped into his soft gray fur. He purred as if he, himself, felt the pain.
All I believed in died during those next few disappointing weeks. That is why I went in search of a better place, a place I knew existed because I had glimpsed it in moments that became part of me. And I found it — just as I remembered. Found it here in this place whose door opens in. Only beauty surrounds me now, and I am a part of this beauty. I will never go back. Never.
But wait. The others! They do not know of this place. They are afraid of the dark and won't go into the cave they have been warned about. I must go back and tell them, for they have buried deep within their hearts a lie, a lie that is called insignificance.
Thinking they are small and worthless, they hold on to each other's hands and tremble at the thought of greatness, as if they deserve no part. Believing in nothing, they make tabernacles of their lives and within them hold sacred those things that are of no consequence. They are afraid to let go of their precious things, their impressive titles, their signs of worth, even their poverty and strife — for it is all they have, and, they fear, all there is.
Please, Gatekeeper, I beg leave now for I must go back and tell the others of this place. They have been my companions for so long I cannot bear the thought of leaving them behind. Life here belongs also to them, and they do not know it.
Let me go back. I shall leave my heart in this place so you know I must return. If I am not back in a day, my heart is yours to give to someone else.