Dawning Realizations/Lost baggage

I forgot to mention in yesterday's post, in the middle of the hurt/frustration of breaking the tagine, of how I got on to the thoughts of death. It came, oddly enough from an episode of 'batman beyond'... a cartoon. In the middle of an episode, the new batman has the choice to either turn himself over to the villain, or let the villain attack the city. He has the choice between sacrificing himself or to stay safe & let the city die. Being the heroic type, he sees only the option of sacrifice, thinking it's just him vs. the baddie. But in this moment a friend reminds him of the hole he'd leave if he were gone in the lives of his mom, brother, friends.

I paused the show there, to go grab another glass of milk (was eating at the time) & somewhere between the pause button & the fridge, the tears struck. The unexpected voice started to whisper, to remind me of the hole I'd leave in peoples lives if I wasn't around...

Tonight I got the privilege of being able to share "my story" with the people at the community house/urban monastery. With the lingering frustration from the fractured pot, the telling of the tale took on a slightly different tone than what I wanted.

Each time I tell my story, it seems that different themes come out in the overall picture. Tonight's theme seemed to parallel that of the 'batman revelation'... For a lot of my life I've treated myself like I was alone, alienated. This has come from a variety of places, but mostly lies i belived about who i was... thoughts that I am unlovable, unwanted, etc. So I've lived a lifetime of either bartering for friendship or living in this place of expecting to be left alone at the end of the day....

But the reality, if I see it right/correctly now, is that I have always been loved.... This is still a dawning realization, but yeah, I'm starting to see this reality....

My friends prayed for me tonight. It's been a long time since I've had/let people pray for me... It was good. very good. Once again, like rain washing over my soul.... I want to hang on to their prayers, to remember the exact words they said, but yeah, the memories fade & we can't hang on to the moments, just let them find root in our hearts to grow from simple seeds into rich fruit....

They spoke over me words of adoption, of a consistency of indentity, of an identity that was not destroyed/taken away, but was always there. They spoke of kingship, of being a patriarch, of joseph, of fulfilled dreams/longings, of jacob wrestling the angel... & most of all that they were there for me.... and all of it kind of broke me open again, the plow turning up new ground to receive the seed... it's been a long time of fighting alone - or at least living in the illusion that I'm alone....

I think I've seen someone's illustration of the entrance to heaven of being this picture of where the entrance to heaven is on the left, on the right is this sea of fire. As people approach the gates, they get to leave behind all the luggage, all the baggage that they've been carrying around their whole lives. & it's this baggage that fills the sea of fire, burning up all the heartaches that people carried for years....

... it's starting to feel like i can leave the bag called 'isolation' on the side of my road, that it's a burden I won't have to carry any more. I'm not saying this in some sense that this group of people is going to 'rescue' me from isolation - I'll drive them bonkers if I look to them to save me. It's just again, that the light is shining in a dark place. The light of truth illuminates the reality of my situation & there is just the realization again that I am loved....