Tornadoes have wreaked tremendous damage to large parts of our nation, destroying countless lives and property in the process. Most will have the chance to pick up the pieces and move on. Some, though, are gone, leaving broken hearts and empty lives behind.
It makes me think of the storms that have blown through my life, left to wonder whether I'll be standing and where once they subside -- assuming they do.
They will, won't they????? One can only hope . . . But I digress.
It was almost a decade ago that Tsen Tsing talked to me about embracing the unknown, and trusting that there was a path carved for me. He described the western desert, where even there subtle gullies -- even if unseen -- existed to channel the water during the rare torrential rains.
It was an accurate prediction of what my life was going to be like. My law practice gave way to a long period of what was described by a Buddhist monk as preparation to be a spiritual leader (she used the term religious) -- a leader of whom, to where and for what I had no idea. Moreover, I resisted, not wanting the spotlight and responsibility that often go along with leadership, not to mention I wasn't a religious kind of guy.
My life was always an exercise in trying to go my way, even though the rest of the world seemed headed somewhere else. And when I interacted with it, it was often combative, fighting off others' efforts to direct me where they wanted me to go and into what they wanted me to do. Even when they weren't, I was stirring things up, challenging beliefs and practices that were usually about imposing them upon one person/group or another.
Maybe that's why I now talk about peace so much -- it's like a counterbalance to the first 50 years of fighting, and when I wasn't, training myself for combat.
If that's leadership, it's a new one on me. Because I'm not really trying to lead anyone, but just go my own way. It's just that I do it openly, sharing both my destination and what I discover along the way. And if anyone wants to join me, that's great. If not, that's okay, too.
So what you get from me are breadcrumbs I drop from the insights I pick up along the way. How you use them, if at all, is entirely up to you.
Anyway, on with the story.
Dealing with the outer world is hard enough. Learning to navigate our inner one is even harder, especially through all the unnecessary filters and conditions we use to distort the flow of our light and love into the world.
