Focusing on shadow this month has been hit or miss for me. I’ve spent a lot of time in denial. In a state of “Shadow? What shadow?” In other moments, there’s an undefined gloaming. A soft melancholy that whispers so softly in my ear I can’t quite make out the words.
I feel it, this pensive reticence. But I can’t quite put a finger on why it’s there. I can easily point my finger at a few reasons for it. Because he did this, because of that thing, because of grief, because of the pandemic and isolation… there are many things to blame it on. But none that should be lingering for a few years now, should it? Shouldn’t I be healing? Why is this lingering?
I sit in stillness and close my eyes. I easily slip into meditation and allow the question to rise. What is this feeling? What is this about and how do I heal it? I hear, “This is the becoming.” I repeat to myself, the becoming. Something about it resonates with my soul.
I know I’m onto something and ask for more information. In a flash, I’m given a knowing where I see all the events of the past few years that have broken me. Pierced. Unraveled.
I know I’m onto something and ask for more information. In a flash, I’m given a knowing where I see all the events of the past few years that have broken me. Pierced. Unraveled.
This is what I’ve been feeling but didn’t know how to articulate. So much of what I carefully put in place had to be burned down to make room for what’s to come. But I’ve been holding onto shreds of set decoration from Act 1 and I know it’s time to lay them down. Why is that so hard? Why do humans feel the need to hold on to shreds of debris from the past? There is no life there, not anymore.
As I sit quietly in my big pile of ashes waiting for God to turn them into beauty, I realize this is a season of returning to myself. A shift back to wholeness. I’ve always been whole, but sometimes it’s easy to forget, isn’t it? This time and space is sanctified for my healing and it has only now truly occurred to me. I have not been making the most of this time. I’ve been a poor steward of this gift.
I remind myself to show myself some grace because I’m not done with it yet and still have a bit of this season yet to walk through. There’s still time. The question is what to do with it? I’m shown a vision of myself walking gently through a field of wildflowers during golden hour, dragging my hands through the flowers. Peacefully soaking in the last rays of the day and I know Spomie is trying to signal me to simply be still. To savor the stillness. The serenity. The tranquility. This is a time of moving inward. A time of reflection, remembering, reset, and then reigniting.
I feel God remind me that I am His Beloved. When I am reminded of those words, they land on my heart in a potent way. Almost like they are salve on the puncture wound placed there a few years ago.
As I allow the sentiment to soak into me, I am shown that I need to be reminded of what true love actually looks and feels like. A mix of emotions roll up and get caught in my throat as I realize how I feel like I have left my one true love…God. I know I haven’t because literally every day of my life is about service to God, the Universe, and humanity. Yet somewhere in my most secret heart, I admit that I have somehow separated what I consider God/The Universe and the God of Christianity. As if they are two separate Gods.
My rational brain knows this isn’t true…I mean they are the same thing. But in my shadow…they haven’t been. Not really. I had separated them. And that is part of the problem because cutting myself off from the loving God that I have always known, loved, and based my life around has also unwittingly cut myself off from His unconditional stream of love and goodness that flows over my head and heart.
I have an instant and unspoken conversation with God, Abba, Father, lover of my soul. I was always taught that when you are too upset to speak that the Holy Spirit will make utterances for you to the Lord. I guess this is one of those times because while I have no words, I feel like there is nothing left unsaid between us and I feel His love engulf me.
I have been tainted by pain these past few years and need to remember where I came from. Not just the pain of the past few years, but this past decade or so of spiritual awakening and leaving the church. On one hand I felt like I had good footing, but now I realize I had left a huge part of myself behind that I needed to reconnect with. A huge chunk that got thrown out when I threw out the church.
But, God is not the church. Jesus is not the church. The structure and rules with which I used to look at them are now different because I have removed the church from the equation. Now they have no structure. They have no rules. There is no legalism, no hypocrisy, no conditions on their love and acceptance.
It’s now an “and” relationship, not an “or” relationship. It’s you can believe in us AND also that. Not, you can believe in us OR that, but not both. And if you choose to believe in that, you are wrong and will go to hell. Now it is simply, we are here and we love you. Come home. It’s time to heal.
I think this somberness I’ve been feeling for a few years now is the unspoken grief and loss of the life of yesterday… a house full of children, my youth, loves lost, loved ones lost, mistakes made, losing my religion. It’s the unraveling of Act 1.
Act 2 isn’t quite ready yet and so here I remain. In stillness. In solitude. A hushed quiet has fallen over a once noisy life. I’m not who I was in my former life. Not even a few years ago. And I’m not who I will be.
I am in the becoming.
