Transcendence To Go
Sometimes you find transcendence when you’re not even looking for it. I love it when that happens. The last couple of days haven’t been easy. They’ve taught me a lot, and caused me to set a new long-term course in my life. So bad news/good news there.
Once I experience pain, I’m so busy wanting to feel better, trying to work through whatever’s made me fall off the happiness wagon, that I don’t expect anything. I hope that the painful stuff starts to dissipate, and my worn-out eyes start to focus on what’s good about my life again. It’s like I’m a giant focusing telescope, and I have to swing myself around to face a completely different landscape.
So when I find something that at first seems accidental, it’s like the universe has sent me a little gift. That’s what happened when I ran across this poem in a magazine today:
“What is it you want to change? Your hair, your face, your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things and He Might weep when they are gone.”
— St. Catherine of Siena
It felt like someone had hosed me down with liquid nitrogen. I froze, feeling my blood shock my veins. My perceptions froze as well, as time seemed to slow down and the song on the radio began to assume a grander sort of importance. With all my senses hanging in the balance, I saw beyond the moment — to healing, to new moments, to challenges, love, acceptance and total integration. I saw beauty and forgiveness, and true understanding of what these times of doubt really are — opportunities to continue. Nothing more, nothing less.
