Free and Clear

Sometimes I think I should revise the tag lines on Love's Freeway--in particular, the part about "not a care in the world. No traffic, no tolls, no wrong turns." Let's face it: "wrong" turns are part of the ride.

Here I am fresh out of another (yes, another) difficult passage. You know: one of those periods when you feel as though you are blindfolded and pawing around a stifling room looking for any sign of a door or a window and finding none. It wasn't pretty and it wasn't fun.

Fear, doubt: they're handy, you know? They rescue us, on the one hand--but they nail us to the cross on the other. For better or worse, I gave myself to them. I surrendered to them, experienced them completely and without judgment, not trying to make them go away. I observed them with curiosity. And eventually, they led me out: they were the doors and windows.

So the so-called wrong turns are part of Love's Way, right? I know I've written about this before, and concluded that yes, of course they are. Indeed they are...but they don't have to be. There will come a time when I won't need them any longer. Until then, the "wrong" turns, the traffic jams are necessary, precious gifts of Love. Like the blue, furry spots on the cheese that are there to say "cut me out! I'm no good for you!"

I encountered a very bright light this week, a man who is no stranger to Love. When I mentioned my recent passage, he took it in stride.

"Just like with bamboo," he said. "It needs to form a new layer of hard tissue to support its next layer of growth."

I pictured the segments of a bamboo stalk--like a finger with many knuckles. His analogy made perfect sense.

I hear the voice of a dear one, from some years ago: "There's a place for it," she would say when I offered consolation--This shouldn't be! or I'm sorry for you or the like: something that amounted to judgment or resistance. Indeed there is a place for struggle--for anything that brings me back to Love when I'm--say, "slumming" in the mire of fear or doubt or the like. Mold on the cheese, pain in the body, the break in the heart: it all serves a purpose. It all has something to say.

"Joyful simplicity" was what I had intended for this year, at its outset. Lately, things hadn't been joyful or simple. But then I had stopped trusting, hadn't I? I had, in effect, stepped out of the light of Love. No wonder it was so dark!

A Claritywork client wrote to me recently to say she was having a difficult time. She was facing evidence that contradicted her vision for her future, and she was doubting her vision as a result.

"I completely understand," I replied. "All I can say is there is doubt and no doubt, and there is no middle ground between the two. One creates one thing, and the other creates another. Every moment is a moment of creation; every moment is a moment of intention. Fear creates that which we fear. And I think you know: attachment to an outcome constrains the result as well."

I know this. I just forget it sometimes. Like she forgets sometimes. Then we remember. Then we find our way back. Then we are free.

My passage was painful, yes. But it was also beautiful. I have emerged triumphant. Like some sort of spiritual chiropractic, I have massaged and cracked myself back into alignment. I am humming again, in tune. I know through and through that Love knows what Its doing. It has been good to me all along the way, and that's not changing any time soon--not ever, in fact.

Not because I deserve it. Because I am It: abundant, infinite, free.