I hope we can all agree that texting is not the best space to have deeper conversations. The vast wasteland of white space around our little speech bubbles leaves too much room for assumptions and hurt feelings. I don’t even feel like the phrase “pick up the phone and call somebody” is even relevant anymore. Because what makes a phone now is so far beyond the basic concept of a phone.
But I digress, in the shadow of a recent lengthy text conversation I had with my best friend the time I spent processing my thoughts after really helped shuffle my perspective. And it comes down to truth. What is truth? Is my truth your truth? Is their truth our truth? Or does Oprah have it right when she urges us to “speak our truth”?
Who among us can own truth?
This is the bigger question forming in my mind. Well, fuck, not just my mind but my whole being. Wrestling with it and bending under the weight of it. I don’t think anyone has the upper hand on truth. Who among us mere mortals can begin to wrap our dirty, greasy hands around what beauty she is… truth.
So then the imagery came. Because that’s the way my mind works and fuck every standardized test I ever took. The version of truth I was handed as a child seemed so solid and sturdy. It was foundational. It was the rock you built your life upon. Then I survived tragedy of divorce and being caught between two worlds. If I didn’t know any better I’d say my version of truth started to dissolved from solid to liquid earlier than most. Leaving my youth behind and entering the decade of my twenties I still managed to exercise an exorbitant amount of control. Pretty much in all areas. My marriage. My beliefs. My career. But I was still keeping myself in the dark about all this control. To me it felt as natural as the blue sky or the grass being green.
Fear is all about letting go. Or maybe it’s the other way around? Either way, when I began to question my control is when I began to fear for my safety. Fear of letting go what I always believed to be true? Could I? Would I? How is it possible to believe in something and still let it go? Quite easy actually now that I see control as the illustrious being it is. You see, once I gave into my fears and fully let go of all I held onto then truth was able to be the river it has always been.
Ooph, the metaphors are a plenty here. But do you feel me? I don’t believe anymore that I can hold onto something that is bigger than me. It’s why my girls can run and jump on me and not pin me to the ground. I am bigger than them. So too why I know I can’t run and jump at a concrete wall and expect to knock it down. I am not that strong. Or, okay I’ll bring it down to earth, it’s the reason why I can no longer accept Jesus as the only way to God. And I really love Jesus. But I don’t have to convince you of any of this. Truth is only a lived experience. Truth is not a controlled substance taken every Sunday morning.
And now as I accept the flow all around me life is beautiful. There is nothing I can control. There are only choices I can make. To be in the flow or not. I feel like this may have been what Jesus wrote in the sand that day. Do you see the flow? Can we see the burning bush around us at every moment? All the subtle glimpses help me carry on each day. Knowing that one day this liquid will turn to gas. A mere vapor rising up to meet and become one with the air.