Adultbirth

I have begun meditating as soon as I get out of bed. Before I do anything else, before that first hankered-for cup of tea is drank (drunk? Neither of those words sounds right), I will sit down for 15 minutes or so of "Be still and know that I am God."

This morning I could feel anxiety fluttering about like a forest full of butterflies. Being still was not accomplished for very long stretches before the chattering thought monkeys started in. My inner perfectionist qualms at badly done meditation, but it was what it was.

And I am what I am. I balk at what I am sometimes, having learned in a million different ways, like we all do, that it's not okay being what I am and I must change it or I will die old, decrepit, and alone in a sea of large rubbish bins down an alleyway. Or something ;)

I guess in one way we're right about it not being okay what we are. It's not okay sometimes. There is shit in me which just needs to go, which hurts me and other people, and it's quite obvious that God is in agreement with me on those things. Fears and insecurities which cut me off from 20/20 vision. Spikes generated to hide wounds that nevertheless poke and prod other people and hide who I am from the world.

Seems to be a pretty big difference in approach, though, from where me and God stand. My desires to remove and change elements of myself result in clodhopperly attempts to wrench them out of myself, sometimes fuelled by abhorrence that such things are located inside me. God's approach is much smoother, much gentler, much more workable and much more deep. So deep that I don't even notice half the time what's going on. So deep that it TAKES SO BLOODY LONG TO EFFECT CHANGE SOMETIMES THAT IT FEELS LIKE NOTHING IS CHANGING!!!

:) But it is. The beauty of his method breeds a comfort and security from knowing how he has acted with me before, the very gentle way he handles me, much gentler than I handle myself or others. This is Love of a different calibre than anything else, of a colour never seen before, of a song so beautiful that we can't believe it is true. Every time I have some sort of interaction with him - how to describe the indescribable, the ineffable, the so-small-you-could-miss-it? - it's a tiny, tiny drop into a growing pond, the drops so small over the hours and days but observable through the passage of time. Observable in incremental changes, in fears laid down or walked through like fire, in new ways of seeing and being. Vistas that come upon us suddenly, when we least expect it, when we think our hearts are shattered and everything is lost, a word spoken, a gesture, a phrase, a sunset, a water ripple, a heart murmur. It's quite amazing how eternally hope springs, up through our footpath cracks.

I feel like my head is just stopping from spinning from the pain of the past 10 years (or slowed down, at least). It is breathtaking to have experienced so much pain. I sound like Dr Smith from Lost in Space but the whole experience bashed me round the head, left me stunned and often bewildered at the stuff and nonsense and pain of an ordinary life. It seems illogical in some ways to go further into trust and love of a God who would create a world where such pain could exist, but it's quite an open road for me to do so these days, having teased the strands out somewhat of freedom and reality and love and pain and where God fits into all of that, and how he holds me through it. I know, despite all that stuff, that he is Love. I have learned to trust him.

I am beginning, ever so slightly, to be able to rest while sitting as an unfinished work, a half-written book, a half-sculpted piece. I don't like that some of my chapters are so messy that you wouldn't want to show anyone, and yet I need to walk around in the world, having a life, interacting with people, doing stuff and being stuff, with chapters that I would rather put away in the drawer and hide out of shame and pride. But there's nothing to be done for it but to keep on walking around, trying to focus more on the chapters that have been written that I am happy and comfortable with, and trying to come to terms with the fact that often people are most touched by the half formed chapters, the embarrassing stuff. How annoying that is.

Vulnerability is some kind of bitch. But all shall one day be well, even as it is all well now, in its unfinished state. Despite all the shit, the fear, the anxiety, the pain.

Always pain before a child is born.