A Tribe that Contains all Tribes

What if there are people who love on both sides?  What if there is a tribe that contains all tribe?  Life.  Love.  Kindness.  What if these are the places where we should go.  When I give myself to an ideology, I give part of myself away.  My instincts then are to defend that ideology.  My walls come up.  What if the victory is already won, what if love is at the core of the universe?  What if this speaks louder than any word?  Now I can lay down my defenses, and not try to muster up a "right" response and simply accept love, to accept that I am accepted.

Beneath our differences, in thought, in belief, there is a river running that joins us all.  All notion of independence isn't the full reality.  We are interconnected with Christ at the core.

Democrats and Republicans.  Gay or straight.  Male, female or transgendered, we are all one.  The river flows.  The river doesn't judge, it simply invites.  May I, may we, always just simply say, "Yes!"

Becoming One

If there were fragments, these fragments gained a buzz, not quite an energy, but a pre-energy of sorts, an attraction to Another and to each other.  Rather than shrugging it off or explaining it away, they indulged their curiosity and then suddenly found they were  not alone.  They were no longer isolated fragments, but were together, being interwoven without even having knowledge of it.  This new element, felt a buzz, felt attraction to Another and longed for something else.  "We've been here before, it says, let us indulge."  And so it did, to find itself bonded to, consumed by, consuming, one with other creations, the fragments, turned one, turned into a larger and more inclusive one, a more complex, and diversely created one.  "I like this cycle!" it states.  "Let us for all of time seek out those not yet included and include them, for we are stronger together.  Our diversity makes us beautiful, we must share, we must include, we must accept, we must love."

A Clarifying Peace

A whisper becomes a word, the word gains energy, causes curiosity, starts an energy, then energy gains momentum, the momentum picks up speed; a raindrop, to a puddle, to a stream, a river, an ocean.

Peace felt in the heart, becomes peace felt in the limbs, becomes surrogate legs to walk with.  Peace that starts in the far corner of the soul, bleeds over into our consciousness, if only as a mist at first, but is enough to color the eyes.  A wound is allowed to breathe, might seems like a small feat, but in the oxygen it begins to flower, and it's discovered that through the very place we tried to hide, mystery and light makes itself known to us.  A little fear gets uncovered, a little freedom gained for the soul, and seeps into our conversations and strivings.

Let the small victories pour forth.  For it is in this way the battle is won.  Our day to day fighting, fighting against the restrictive, constrictive, habitual, critical voices.  May seem irrelevant, may want to give up.  But landscape cleared, can be a place for grace to rest, and grace that rests is grace taking affect.  Every step you take is a step, don't run from them, let them sink in.

You matter.  Every one of your victories is a victory.  Live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness.

Hospitality and Rest

Lonely, afraid, bitter, down.  All I am feels to have sulked low.  This divisive greed wants to sprout throughout my body.  It promises me that it's my keepsake, it says no one knows like it does, it promises gold and silver.  It says "I am the silver lining, trust in me."  But I have this aching feeling that its bitter path leads towards death.  My memories start to wrestle with me, to make themselves known.  "You've been here Aaron," they say, "There is good, you don't need to kill yourself for this terrible darkness."

And lo, I have a choice.  What voice do I listen to?  Which voice is real?  Which voice is good?

Lord God, open my path before me.  Be my spacious grace, my hospitality and rest.  Lead me deep into your heart

Grace

Flow through me, be my companion.  Touch every part of my mind.  Reach into the deep recesses of my soul and unconsciousness, and put into them your light.  Illuminate my darkness, so that I may be healed.  Swirl in the air, resound from the Ground of Being.  Come in, be in my breath, flow through my limbs.  Let all succumb to you.  Let my inner child be at home in you, and then rocket though all my years until I'm completely swallowed up by you.

Sing from the highest height.  Bubble up from the deepest sea.  Be on the wind.  Make yourself known from between the stillness.  Be through the music of the ages, make all things new.  Heal us.  Let us be home.

Bring into the light the shadow in my soul.  That I may know true peace.  That my joy may overflow. To be a part of the Whole.  To know Reality as good.  To not fear my own skin, or my own death, but to see it as a transition into new life, into a new birth.

Let my mind find rest.  Ease my fear.  Speak into me the Truth that is beyond my words.

Tri

Not one, but not the other.  Somewhere in-between?  Or something else entirely?  I reach for one, to fall.  I reach for the other, to fall.  Polarities seem to be my downfall.  Am I on the left or the right?  Am I good or bad?  Is the universe friendly or a cold dark place, or worse, hostile.

When I seek for answers by staring them in the faces, I get nowhere, rather, I get frustrated.

What if....What if all are part of the story.  What if each polarity reflects a part of the truth.  I don't want to climb a latter the entirety of my life to find it was leaning against the wrong, or one, building.   I don't want to be numb to learning from others different than me.

It is true, I have sought comfort and security from the poles.  If only I could pitch my tent there, and everything would go right.  I must let go of this notion, this lie that promises comfort only to breed hate.  In this place, I feel a sense of power, but it deceives me.  For I thought I could control it.  I thought I sat upon it like a race horse or a tank, which I could steer to do my bidding.  I thought it had my best interest in mind, but it used me as a spoke on a wheel,  a while spinning in the concrete, both going nowhere and towards nothingness.

Step back.  Breathe.  If the answers aren't in the poles, where are they.  Maybe in that we need not comb the ends of the earth to seek our truth, rather rest in that the truth is already present, already self sufficient.  I need not look among the stars, it's not in a celebration of polarity or autonomy, but an acceptance and surrender to that which is normal, that which is the true Reality.  The Reality that is holding each of us, asking us to let the chaff die, so that it can be reborn into a bigger and more inclusive expanse.  Thus participating in a truth already present, not sought by defining our differences, by seeking polarity.  Not building a latter to climb to the highest reaches of my mind, but rather feeling the earth beneath my feet, and realizing that the sacred has always been present.  It's been holding me much more than I've been seeking it.  In my seeking, I have become distracted from its basic principles, and its mystery embedded in the ordinary.

In this type of universe, my ascension is needed, not building my towers and walls, protecting what's "mine," reaching the "pinnacle," striving to get ahead or be one up.  It's not in a self constructed life.  Rather, it's in a dying of all of this, to be reborn to the true gratification.  Death and life.  It's in my death that I am met.  And here, my effort means nothing.  Rather, it's in my nothingness where I am held, in a boundless and spacious place.  And here, we are all on equal ground, because we are all held by the One.  It's His power that does the changing, I must simply basque in the sunlight.

Stop.  Breathe.  Awake.  Love.

Even When

Even when I'm at my lowest, even when the game seems played before, even when darkness seems more present than hope; the river flows.  My eyes are crusty, they burn from the fires from which I tried to view reality.  My knees strain, they carry a weary body, and the burden.  

Even when I am lost in my own head, where thoughts carry way too much of my attention.  Even when I fall short; the river flows.  My head twitches, my weight scares me, my throat is still sore.  

Even when I'm dead; the river flows.  Before and beyond a temporary scare, before a twisted body, there is hope; for you, for me, for everything.  

I had just been looking at the wrong symbols.  They only bound me, into chains, while I thought I was innovating.  But, when I close my eyes, I hear a distant sound of trickling water, the water of life.  I give pause, considering what I hear.  Could there be more here?  I must tune in; the trickle becomes a bubbling, becomes a brook, becomes a stream, becomes a river, becomes a lake, becomes an ocean, becomes everything.  My broken back and strained eyes receive their balm.  Not in the innovation of my crafty mind, or in the promise of a new healing, but in the Presence.  The One who has been, will be and is.  Through which time ceases and my soul is finally home.  My death, that I died in was speaking from the wrong set of presuppositions.  There was another story being told, right under my nose.  From within and without.  Healing exists.  Hope is real.  It is the fabric of reality; I tried to build my castle, all the while a home already existed.  Let me not be my own pain, my own undoing.  

Let my head and heart rest in the eternal story, the one that can only be spoken of in metaphor, and yet is truer than any definition of it.