"The truth is like a lion. You don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself." -St. Augustine
PLEASE NOTE (warning label): This is one of those blog posts I wrote after a harrowing, "character-building" life event (lol). Kind of seems like a downer initially but really, it's about resilience.
Sometimes it feels like life is kicking you directly in the face. Better yet, the teeth. Over and over and over again. The pain (physical and/or emotional) may even feel like it could steal the very last cough of a breath out of you. But through the blur of tears, in between the moments when one's eyelids are blinking so fast in disbelief, they feel like tarred butterfly wings, in your mind's eye, you can see something. Just a vague 'something.' Something that looks for all the world like a light, like a positive end to the story. Something that smacks of...truth. Something that says ‘hold on’ when the very will to do so was lost a long time ago. Something that feels like an irrefutable, immovable, indestructible and beautifully simple truth – like honoring your gifts, savoring your journey, loving yourself, respecting yourself and pushing through no matter what, matter. Something that feels like a faint tap on your soul, beckoning you to push yourself up from your knees and stand. Stand one more time. Stand even though getting knocked down again is almost certain. Stand again. One more time. In the arena where your very soul is being tested.
What do you stand for? And what have you been given to work with in this world? And what is your truth no matter what? And what is the story you must – you must – oh, you must – tell? The natural gifts we have are the very things that lead us to our story. Our real story, the beautiful one, the effortless one, the one that flows, the one that rocks our soul gently to peace and satisfies our heart, the one that the world, at some point, sometime, will need. And so the challenge is not to enter the arena unscathed and pristine, in “clean” fighting shape (“fighting fit,” as Dr. Barbara DeLateur said). No, the challenge is simply to march on.
March forward. March towards and then into the arena. Steadily move your feet, and at times, it'll be under such a firestorm, such a siege that the clamor inside and outside of you drowns out the sound (and feeling) of your moving feet. But move your feet forward, nevertheless. The challenge is to march tall even with bloodied soles/souls and aching shoulders. To push on, towards the mark…through the pain, visceral and otherwise. Knowing…that the very pain that could have destroyed you (and almost did time and time again), was sent to clarify who you are. To pare away the noise. To simplify your mission, your truth, your natural and original state. Because whatever is left after that firestorm, whatever nugget endures – it is true.