I have entered a period of quietude; I no longer am concerned with trivial matters in my life. For years, I have been so wrapped in my own vainglory that I have forgotten everything my Father taught me. Everything I understand is from my Father and his Love for me. Yet, I always seem to fail in my response, whenever challenged, which is often. I feel this miscreation makes me a fallacious person, for the reason I am not being truthful to myself, my family, or my Father.
When I was very young, maybe even before I was ten years old, I fell into a ground yellow jacket nest. Receiving over 100 stings to my young body. My family and friends were spending two weeks at Shanks Village, the former Camp Shanks, located near Nyack New York. There were no doctors handy, so a friend of my parents drove me in the only car we had to the local fire department, where I was unceremoniously stripped and hosed down to rid my body of all the dead or dying bees. I spent the remainder of our vacation lying on a chaise lounge watching all the other children playing baseball, going blackberry hunting, and running through the cold water of a garden hose, held by the same father who took me to get help.
Reflecting on that lost summer, I appreciate that since then I have used that as a self-justification to fail. That’s correct, fail.
It is easiest to justify failure. I’m not good enough. I lack the talent. See him, he has so much more talent that I have. I’ll just do my own thing. Remember that from the 1960s and 1970s? Doing our own thing. For many that meant facing life, defeating defeat; that is, until you justify why it is acceptable to fall short of your own self-imposed goals.
Over this past weekend, I fell climbing the stairs at Shrine Mont Episcopal Retreat Center in Orkney Springs, Virginia, a beautiful place, a place to get lost in a world that we are unaccustomed inhabiting. Linda and I have enjoyed our times there, relaxing lake side, watching the children enjoying true freedom, watching the young one hunt newts.
Well, I fell, and many on hand assisted me, showing true concern, no true Love, for my wellbeing. These brothers and sisters are the angels that God sends to comfort us, to assist us through the difficult ties in our lives, when all goes awry. Naturally, being the egotist that I am, I admitted my stupidity, thanked all for their Love, and proceeded with my weekend. Until I couldn’t. Linda and I left Shrine Mont early. I was in pain, but not the physical pain that one imagines. Mine is a more psychological, a more personal pain; one that both wrapped me in a cloak of denial, and spring from me as an explosion of molten rock from a mountain top. At three o’clock this morning to a dread of such magnitude that I feared that I was dying; I also feared that I was not dying. Although not afraid of death, I do not want to leave just yet. I love Linda, my two children, Megan and Cordis, all my friends, and God. I also do not know what lies ahead, except that I know what God has planned for me and I am assured that it is wondrous.
God, I know you are listening. I am yours forever; I know that I will rejoice when arriving at my destiny. But I also know that you Love me and all my family and friends. So why do I fear so much. Why do I fear living, and why do I fear dying? I don’t know the answer, but I do know that I am loved. Loved by Linda, Megan, Cordis, my grandson Carter, my wonderful, loving friends, and above all, I am Loved by God.
As I sit here at my computer, writing this psychological dictum of nonsense at four-thirty this morning, I know that this unending Love, gratefully received from my family and friends, is s direct gift from God. And this gift, this realization, is comforting me.
Thank you, God, and thank you, all my angels. We share the greatest Love there is.
Meditating to Heal 