“Enchantment and perfection do not lie in the same order of things….Enchantment pours out of cracks in shifting walls,tilting roofs, and not quite square corners.”
Thomas Moore
I don’t want to cover up the fault lines showing through my pale skin and parched soul, but for so many of us we don’t know any other way. We don’t want anyone to see us feeling my way through, or hear us fumbling for a light switch like fools, or tripping over our ego a million times a day, or bleeding over our own broken pieces lying shattered on the ground beneath us.
We are told to skip over our mountains of grief or sadness, to go up and over, without any sweat.
We are told magic formulas for figuring out our lives like it was a math equation that makes logical sense.
We are told to stop spinning and swirling, stand upright and try to be right.
We are told our problems are ugly and scary and we’re deemed unworthy of a crown.
We are told the tears running down our cheeks means we’re a mess on the inside.
We are told to turn down the music of our soul, to deny, to sacrifice what makes us come most alive.
We are told to mask the scars and the wounds and the pain, and never let anyone, even our own selves, acknowledge those dreadful parts.
We assume it’s forbidden to fiercely love ourselves in our present state of being unfinished, but isn’t that all we will ever be? Unfinished? Constantly in a state of recovery?
I don’t know that any of us have been taught how to delight in who we are right this minute and furthermore, that it’s actually the only path to wholeness and freedom.
I’m coming into my late thirties now and realizing how many years I’ve wasted on wishing I could just be there already.
This paradox, at times, too unbearable to hold within me- how could embracing my fractured, ragged and wild self, lead me to the fullness of Love?
The unfriendly narratives we feed ourselves over our imperfections, make us all liable to some degree of self-hatred, and in turn, we are uncomfortable with each other and our humanity.
I know I’ve funneled all my energy and effort into puttying my cracks, sitting in my supposed sin nature waiting for salvation to find me, and trying to form some meaningful shape out of my life before the book closes.
Do you hear the clock ticking?
You’re running out of time.
Isn’t that the underlying message we often hear as we try to finagle our way through the weeds?
Hear this, there is no timeline for your wholeness, for your healing, for finding your way around here.
No amount of scheming, plotting, and dare I say, prayer, will make it any easier or quicker for us to traverse across the wild landscape of our life.
But when we ditch the tic-toc of the clock, suddenly our senses open up to the sacredness of our feet hitting the ground with every step. Now, finally, we can begin to be enchanted with our reality, instead of being at war with it.
The truth is, we are being made and remade every single day, it is the nature of being human. The stars know it better than we do. They whisper to us as they twinkle against the blackest skies. You’ve got time…all the time in the world.
Take a moment to marvel over this quiet miracle of continual movement called you:
Every few years the bulk of our bodies are newly created.
I wonder if owning up to our unfinished state could make us shine brighter than we ever have?
