Thursday, August 21, 2014

Cross My Heart…

Part of the delay in posting here was that I had made a declaration several months ago about promising to post more often.  As days, weeks, months passed, it felt more difficult to post because I wasn’t keeping true to my word.


Source/Notes: The collected works of Aldous Huxley (1953 edition) 
But I’m letting go of that right now. I’m human. I say things with good intention and sometimes I don’t follow through.  That little voice always tells me, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I have to balance that with “What is the intention?” Do I intend to post on this barely-read blog? or Do I intend on being gracious and loving toward humanity? One of those, I know you would agree, has a bigger weight to it than the other.  But to me, they tend to carry the same weight. It’s rooted in one of my strengths called Belief.  So it’s something that I’m working on.  (I seem to always be working on something….)
If I don’t find myself worthy of forgiveness, why should I forgive you?
So as I peck away at the keyboard this morning, I may not have anything really big to say, but in writing this, I’m offering myself forgiveness and finally taking it.  It’s one thing that I find extremely difficult to offer myself and honestly I’ve never been good at offering it to others either.  I guess it makes sense.  If I don’t find myself worthy of forgiveness, why should I forgive you?  But I’ve been consciously working on the forgiving others part - and I’ve found an enormous amount of freedom in that.  So it should only make sense that if I can forgive myself freedom would also follow.


"No blades, no bows, leave your weapons here."


What a revelation.  Sometimes something so simple is so incredibly hard to see when you can’t even bare to look at your own reflection.  I seek freedom from so many things in my life.  I have accumulated a mass weaponry to fight for that freedom.  My arsenal increases often.  I fight with a purpose.  Sometimes the battles are long and drawn out.  Blood is spilt, and close to death I’ve come.  I’ve even given up, dropped my weapons and fallen to my knees.  I’ve stayed broken and wounded for days, weeks, even years at a time.  But today...today I fight.  I wipe the blood and sweat out of my eyes, I pick up the most peculiar weapon I have at my disposal and I stand.  I may not be able to win the war yet, but this battle, this battle, I will fight with every fiber of my being and eventually I will win. 

Jim Barton [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
The army I have set against myself is large, as dense as an untouched forest.  But even in the densest forest the light peeks through in certain places.  And I know, I know, I know, there will come a day when I can look back and the only thing I see will be a stream of light beaming through that cleared path reminding me of my freedom.