Friday, May 09, 2008

What Is

One thing I've realized lately is
how I am is how I am.
There's no faking it.
I've expended so much energy trying
to be somewhere else on the journey.
Not able to accept myself as is
whatever 'is' happens to be.
People I haven't seen in a while keep telling me
I look peaceful.
Yesterday a woman I haven't seen in six months
said I had a brightness about me.

I can't take the credit for it.
Sure, I show up
and am willing for
transformation.
I sit in prayer and ask God to scrape
the womb clean.

How transformation happens
is a mystery I'm content to let be.
This is where people try and write books about how they got from here to there as if a journey prescription can be written.
And while I feel different inside
than I was a year ago
there isn't a formula to follow.

I've been thinking then that maybe
I can learn to be comfortable
with where I really am
because where I am shows on my face
no matter how conivnced I am
that no one sees but me.

Sometimes I feel foolish for only realizing this now.
I could have saved myself a lot of energy
being content
with what is.

3 comments:

owenswain said...

People place huge expectations on us and we allow them too do it, most of the time. We then template this picture of ourself over what we think we should do and making ourself responsible to a false construct. The self fulfilling nonsense feeds upon us and its hunger can't seem to be sated. Then, something breaks, sometimes at once, more often gradually, painfully slow it is and we become who we have always been. I think that's when God has the most room to bring about actual change in us. In this place we often disappoint or surprise others and in those moments we must determine not to pull out the old templates but to press on with being who we are and especially who we are in Christ Jesus.

Or, something like that. I am happy for you. Peace be with you. ::thrive!

Jim said...

Amen to Onionboy's comment. You speak so much truth here, ma'am, that, to put it simply, you make me smile....

Anonymous said...

Hope, I recently found your blog via emerging sideways and your writings have provided me with a great deal of comfort, reassurance and "hope". Thank you.

Your post today reminds me of this passage from Page 54 of Melody Beattie's book "The Codependents' Guide to the Twelve Steps"....

"I have finally learned this truth: My circumstances change only when I accept them and quietly figure out what it is I need to do to take care of me within the framework of reality.

We stop fighting it, whatever it is. We stop trying to force or superimpose our plan on the scheme of things. Then we allow circumstances - and our part in them - to unfold.

Things are being worked out in us. Things that we do not yet know about. Things we will see with the passage of time."

Take care.