Forget what you've been told........And laughter erupted

And laughter erupted...                                   

 The precious nature of the moment has continue to linger way beyond the moments of it's happening.

You know that place between sleep and awake.  No, this isn't the tale of Peter Pan.  That place; that place where before you are fully aware of the world that surrounds us, you are still hovering in the beauty of otherness.

Moments that are neither here nor there, they just are and if let be they will linger and be absorbed deeper and deeper into your personhood.  Transactions where breathe and spirit and joy and peace and kindness dwell and sing and reverberate with beauty and presence and strength.

Those moments aren't just relegated to those brief seconds as we wake from sleep or nap.  And this is a tale of such a happening...  Even upon the remembrances of it my senses heighten and my joy is made full.

In one place I was driving and fully aware of road and all that goes on with the responsibilities of operating a car.  On the other hand, that which I was was lifted from those moments as Presence saturated the car.  What does that mean?  What is that exactly?

It is a very normal moment touching a more normal reality.  Ah, which is which you ask?  Well, I know what it is for me. Not being coy here.  It is just for each of us to journey.  For me the normal  moment is driving a car, being aware of traffic laws and pedestrians.  For me the more normal reality is seeing light, color, beauty in everything and everywhere. Love St. Ignatius, and his understanding and expression of finding God in all things.

There are more things that we can be aware of each and every moment of each and every day and it doesn't bring one into some alternative ethereal reality.  It deepens the earthy reality of life in palpable and tangible ways.

And that's what got me.. hook, line and sinker.

Learning deep love.  Deep joy. Deep acceptance.  How?  By letting go.....  It was such a terrifying journey to get to these moments.  What would happen if I was.. if I let go of false responsibility, if I let go of pride and arrogance in regards to thinking about what I could do?  What would happen to me if I took 2 steps back, 5 steps back, 20 steps back?  What perspective would I glean?  Would there be a different perspective?  I wasn't given those answers. I was given an invitation.  I could feel upon my person, in the way I know I feel things in the Spirit and discernment, that what I was being given was an invitation, not an explanation.  It was the invitation to leave.  It was the invitation to let go.

Now.. it wasn't all inclusive.  Actually the invitation to let go was also the invitation to  make right.  Life and family, joy and song, music and laughter.

Laughter seems to be playing such a huge role in life right now.  But it's most potent lesson is this... DON'T take yourself so seriously.  You aren't as important as your ego wants you to think.  And again laughter erupts.

But I digress. Back to the driving of a car.  One of my favorite songs began to play.  "Chasing Cars,"  And I began to cry.

If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we're told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life
Let's waste time
Chasing cars
Around our heads
I need your grace
To remind me
To find my own
If I lay here
If I just lay here
Would you lie with me and just forget the world?
Forget what we’re told
Before we get too old
Show me a garden that's bursting into life
All that I am
All that I ever was
Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

I understand that lately I use the word, beautiful, or beauty so often in my writing.  I can't but do 
that.  Again today I was reminded to waste time, to find my own, to just lay there, to embrace a garden that is bursting forth into life... to know that in the perfect eyes of the One I love I am seen and I see. And it is good. And it is very good.

What I learned  today though was that I had more permission than I ever understood.  It emerged with laughter and humor and yup, beauty!

Breathe. Daily and moment by moment reminders to pause, to linger, and to breathe fill my being.

(That seems to be the theme of life right now.)

But as I was driving and listening to a song about cars, I began to see the images of what it must have been like to be at the wedding at Cana.  The emergence of the first miracle.  Water into wine.. laughter and celebration and joy.  Upon those images came the sweetest and strongest of impressions and I was made new.  "You... before you get too old, forget what you've been told."  Then remembrances of lines from Song Of Solomon's book passed through my head....

[Please] do not look at me, [she said, for] I am swarthy. [I have worked out] in the sun and it has left its mark upon me. My stepbrothers were angry with me, and they made me keeper of the vineyards; but my own vineyard [my complexion] I have not kept.   Song of Solomon 1:6Amplified Bible (AMP)

There are those that interpret brothers as churches and ministries and the supposed "works," of and for God.  This has been my journey.  Emerging from not keeping my own complexion, my own "vineyard," as it were.. my own life.  Being told that that was the way, that was the path.. expend time and energy and pour out one's life over and over again regardless of life and family and reality. 

I will tell you a story here...  A child of mine struggled at one point watching me as I would go and minister to this person and that person; this child was losing hope and wondered why were these others more important.  This child was right.  I was wrong.

"Forget what you've been told, before you are too old. Show me a garden that is bursting into life."

That same child of mine and I had a most magnificent conversation out in our driveway the other day as we took turns shoveling snow from the pavement.  I held this child and spoke things into their being, returned to this child and apologized for every time that there were tangible reasons for said child not to know in their gut that they were the most important thing that I would ever do..

We don't give our pastors that message enough.  We don't tell our ministers go love on your spouse and your kids and teach us to do the same and we will all be more healthy.  We lay upon heavy yokes full of expectations and don't take accountability for our own spiritual growth.  We want to nurse at the breast of these and not grow up, families and individuals pay the price.  

So back to the car, back to the song, back to the wedding, back to the heart beat that was filling all things around me.... Forget what you have been told. Forget what you have been told before you are too old.  A reality being shown to me that I am seeing a garden bursting forth into life as I let go....  And immense laughter ensued.  Yes, we will linger here. Yes we will waste time and in wasting time we are not wasting time; we are being.  We are being in love. In the most perfect eyes of heaven we can get lost and it can become all we see.  Then not living an ethereal life with no practical, hands on application.. our lives become the wine that was once only water.  We love in ways that are meaningful, we erupt in ways that laughter fills the air and the depths of our souls and... AND, we live.... WE LIVE... 

In letting go and stepping away from plain water, I have touched wine and joy and laughter and life... and it is better than the first...  

Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then he serves the poorer wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.” John 2

This.. this that I am living now.. this invitation in the Spirit to linger, to rest, to forget things we've been told and realize that there is so much that just isn't true within the striving after ministry... to embrace a stillness and a ceasing of striving and in so doing the reality of knowing God more fully will come to life and our gardens will be absolutely spectacular.  (Not just beautiful.)