Twelve Bells

In April of 1968 I was 16 years old and a disc jockey at a radio station in Northeast Kentucky, quite a heady job for a high school junior. The station had an Associated Press Teletype machine that clicked away 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In the age before “breaking news” referred to the release of the vacation plans of a movie star, news bulletins were rare and a very big deal. The most serious were accompanied by the ringing of 12 bells on the AP machine. I was at the radio station on April 4 in the evening when I heard 12 bells. I ran to the Teletype room and watched as the keys haltingly printed out the news of the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We interrupted programming to read the announcement, but to me it was just news, little more.

Two months later, on June 6, I was doing the morning show. I arrived at the station at 5:30 AM to warm up the transmitter when I heard the same 12 bells, this time announcing the assassination of Bobby Kennedy. When we signed on the air at 6:00 I led with the announcement of his death. Again, it was newsworthy, but to me it was just the news, little more.

I had been heavily indoctrinated to believe the Kennedy’s were eastern liberals hell bent on destroying the nation. I had been taught Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a womanizer who just wanted to stir up trouble. In the spring of 1968 I shed no tears. Truth be told, I was excited to be the one to break such important news in our little corner of the Bluegrass State. It was an opportunity to shine, to present the news with authority and panache.

I grew up in Ohio and Kentucky, a privileged white male in a middle class family. There was a subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, message that I was part of a superior race and a member of the only religious fellowship that got it right. I was also a male in an age in which misogyny was a primary thread in the cultural tapestry. The world was mine for the asking. Why should I be concerned about people who probably did not deserve the opportunities they would not be given?

Last week I watched the movie Selma, about the famous 1965 civil rights march. When the movie ended I sat in my seat, stunned. The movie was superb, and David Oyelowo deserved an Oscar nomination for best actor, but the experience of watching the movie went far beyond any appreciation of fine filmmaking. The movie brought great sadness. When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, I was there. I heard the 12 bells, read the bulletin over the air, but I had missed it. One of the most poignant, heartbreaking moments in modern history, and I missed it.

After the movie my friends Jen and Eric were comparing it to 12 Years A Slave, a movie they found life altering. Jen turned around in the car and said, “This one probably meant a lot to you, didn’t it?” I was overcome with such emotion I could barely speak. The movie indicted, convicted, and sentenced me. All I could think about were those 12 bells and my cavalier attitude reading the AP bulletin on that terrible evening 47 years ago.

Half a century later I finally get it. I understand Dr. Martin Luther King’s growing awareness that he would not die a natural death. Too many were too frightened by the thought of equality for those not like them, so he had to be silenced.

As a transgender woman I understand prejudice. I understand the frustration of being rejected and treated as an outsider just because of who you are. I understand the desire for revenge, and the restraint it takes to avoid lashing out. I understand the post-traumatic stress that comes from being mistreated by those convinced they are being thoughtful and caring when they let you go, but make sure you are “taken care of” with a good severance. I didn’t want a good severance. I wanted my job.

I understand how maddening it is when people say, “Well, you are the one who decided to be all in your face with your life, so you shouldn’t be surprised when you are treated badly.” I know how devastating it is when those who are sympathetic show no moral outrage. Because it is only when allies show outrage that real change occurs. But above all else, I understand I never knew how much I never knew.

As we drove back toward Longmont, my friends kindly but firmly told me my work is not done, that I too have been called to lessen suffering. They talked of my preaching when I was a male, and how the same spirit I exhibited then was needed now. They talked of how the church has failed as it did in the 60s, focusing too much on heaven and too little on creating a just and better world on earth.

When I got back to Lyons the house was empty. Cathy was in New York caring for grandchildren. I sat down in the living room, in my favorite big brown overstuffed chair, and I sobbed. The first time I sobbed was five years ago when I realized I had been called to live this honest and open life. I sobbed again when I screamed at God for making me this way, and not giving me the strength to make it all the way through life as a male. I sobbed when I realized how difficult my transition would be for Cathy and my children. And now I sobbed the tears of the repentant, the humbled, the tears of someone who finally knows what she never knew.

I still have no idea what it must have been like to live a lifetime on the back of the bus. For six decades I smugly took my seat in the front of the bus. Only of late have I come to know, in a small way, what so many have known for a lifetime – that those in power can be astonishingly cruel. Those same wise souls also know an eye for an eye does nothing but make the whole world blind.

Through much of the night I sat in that overstuffed chair thanking Dr. Martin Luther King, Ralph David Abernathy, Julian Bond, Coretta Scott King, and all the other heroes of the civil rights movement who made it possible for me, Paula Stone Williams, to live in these United States, a free woman.

Still, my friends are right. Much work remains to be done. In 32 states I do not have the legal right to keep a job after transitioning. In 32 states I can be denied housing. In all 50 states I do not have the right to keep my job if I work for a religious employer. And of course, there are those whose suffering is far, far greater than mine. What I face is nothing compared to what Rosa Parks, Frederick Douglass, and Solomon Northup had to endure.

Last week I caught a tiny glimpse of how I might have felt had I known what was at stake on that evening in April of 1968 when 12 bells rang. I would have dropped to my knees over the tragic death of the man who gave me the right to write this blog, the man who lived the teachings of Jesus on the big stuff – justice for the poor and the oppressed. I would have understood that some day, because of Dr. Martin Luther King’s nonviolent convictions, his soaring rhetoric and his dogged determination, I would be able to proudly sign my legal name, Paula Stone Williams.

And. So. It. Goes.

 

He Made A Difference

In 1987 I met Bud Paxson when he came to New York for a visit.  Thus began a long relationship with one of the most interesting individuals with whom I have ever worked. Bud was a major supporter of the Orchard Group, but it was through PAX-TV and the Christian Network, Inc. that I came to know him best.

After starting the Home Shopping Network, Bud moved on to begin PAX as a family friendly television network. During the overnight hours PAX aired Worship, a product of the Christian Network, Inc. Worship’s programming was unique, comprised of beautiful scenes of nature coupled with soothing music and short inspirational stories. It was simple, but very popular. As one of the on-air hosts, I was privileged to hear from people who stopped me in airports, on busy city streets, or at sporting events. These viewers told me about late nights up with sick children, struggles with severe depression, and difficult days caring for disabled family members. All of these struggling souls told me how much our programming meant to them in their dark night.

I loved telling Bud the stories I heard. He was moved by thousands of letters he read from loyal viewers. Bud may have invented Home Shopping and created a vast network with PAX, but Worship was probably his greatest work, touching more lives than most of us will ever know.

Bud was a complex man. There were times, when I was chairman of the board of CNI, that Bud would call screaming and yelling words I won’t print here. Just a few hours later he would call back, gentle and thoughtful. That was Bud.

I loved my 19 years in television work, and none of it would have happened, on air or off, without Bud. I learned much from him, and valued his friendship. We parted company around 2006 or 2007, but I have always thought of him fondly. This evening, on NBC Nightly News, I heard Brian Williams tell of Bud’s passing earlier today. Of all the things I could say about Bud, this one thing I know for sure, he loved Jesus – a lot. We’ll miss him. My thoughts and prayers are with Marla and the family.

Purple Threads, Blue Streaks and Fierce Lovers

A good friend told me I was the purple thread running through her life….”the bearer of spirit, mystery, transformation, wisdom.”  I was honored.  We are called to take what humble offerings we have and place them a short heart’s reach from like-minded sojourners.  It is rare we find one another.

This friend for whom I am a purple thread has suffered much, yet she fights with spirit.  Since I have known her she has blossomed into radiance and holy confidence.  I would not want to mess with her.  She can be fierce.  Her children know it.  Her husband knows it.  Her purple thread knows it.

In his book My Bright Abyss, Christian Wiman says, “The single most damaging and distorting thing religion has done to faith involves overlooking, undervaluing, and even outright suppressing this interior, ulterior kind of consciousness…In neglecting the voices of women, who are more attuned to the immanent nature of divinity, who feel that eruption in their very bodies, theology has silenced a powerful – perhaps the most powerful – side of God.”

My spouse personifies this holy eruption. As pure as snow, she can sting your face like sleet in a storm.  She does not shy away.  She is through with silence. When she speaks it is not a purple thread, it is a blue streak.  The blue streak is necessary.  She is petite and pretty and in a male-dominated society, easy to ignore.  But no more.  Men are afraid.  They should be.  She pierces the madness with a holy eruption that clears the room and cleans the air.

I am new to the female gender. I cannot speak for other transgender women, but I feel somewhere in between genders, understanding some things from both sides, while feeling cut off from both when it comes to other ways of seeing life. Since most of the people with whom I am in contact nowadays never knew Paul and have no idea I was a male, I am able to live easily in the world as a woman. The insights that have arrived courtesy of this new perspective have been life altering.

I have been disturbed by the ways I have been treated, particularly when compared with the ways in which Paul was treated. I will write a lot about that in the future, but suffice it to say I have learned what it is like to be ignored, dismissed, and relegated to the back burner by men who assume I have little to offer. It causes me to have that much more respect for strong women who stand there and stand there and stand – refusing to behave like men to survive, but learning to gather themselves up and stand whole and confident and strong.

These purple threads and blue streaks and fierce lovers are the grace given to us by the God of all, who commissions angels to usher these saints into our world, disrupting the status quo and upending the order in the canyons of power.  These purple threads and blue streaks and fierce lovers, they are to be held in our hearts and trusted with our souls.

Tragedy in Cincinnati

When she stepped in front of a truck on Interstate-71, just a stone’s throw from her home in a Cincinnati suburb, Leelah Joshua Alcorn brought the world’s attention to one of the ugliest realities of American religion – how the Evangelical church treats transgender people. Her parents have been vilified in the press and social media. Doug and Carla Alcorn did what they had been instructed to do. They attempted to show love in the way their church taught by refusing to accept what they believed to be sinful behavior. As a result, they will agonizingly scrutinize their actions for the remainder of their lives.

The Alcorns are likely to respond in one of two ways. Either they will dig in their heals and blame secular society for bringing about their child’s death, or they will slowly and painfully come to realize their misguided spiritual understanding has brought about the most tragic of consequences. I hope it is the later. The Alcorns can eventually forgive themselves for being human and tragically wrong. There is no hope for the other option – unbridled arrogance. Most evil in the world is perpetrated by those stridently convinced they are absolutely right.

I do have sympathy for the Alcorns. At some place deep within they must know they horribly mishandled their troubled child. I can only imagine their anguish. But I wonder about their ministers, the Christian counselor who saw their child, and the church leaders who guided them. Are any of those people spending sleepless nights questioning their actions? They should be.

I imagine Leelah’s counselor’s education on transgender issues was virtually nonexistent. Through a bachelor’s degree, two master’s degrees and a doctorate in pastor care, I never heard one single word about Gender Dysphoria or any other DSM diagnosis related to gender. I know of only one Evangelical counseling program in the nation that has done significant work on Gender Dysphoria, and they have come to significantly different conclusions than those evidently provided to the Alcorn family.

A pastor or counselor unacquainted with Gender Dysphoria has one single moral imperative when someone presents as transgender – to show compassion and immediately make a referral to a professional acquainted with this complex reality. If Leelah’s counselor was as unprepared as I suspect, he or she should be sued for malpractice. Too often the law protects Christian counselors and pastors based on religious exemptions to applicable laws. Such misguided protection should end.

I am well acquainted with the religious fellowship that included the Alcorn’s church. Their senior pastor received his master’s degree from the same seminary from which I received one of my degrees. The church is a part of a movement of churches woefully ignorant about Gender Dysphoria. And as often happens with religion, what we do not understand we categorically reject. The tragedy in southern Ohio is testament to the efficacy of such a response.

I have been rejected by a branch of the same movement of churches of which the Alcorns were a part. I was a national leader who preached in scores of megachurches. When I came out as transgender I knew what to expect. Sadly, there were no surprises. Still, the rejection was devastating. As I have written before, there is a reason 41 percent of transgender people have attempted suicide. But I was an adult. I had resources. Leelah did not, and that made all the difference.

For the love of God, open your eyes to our children with Gender Dysphoria. Since I came out as transgender I have heard from the Christian parents of numerous transgender children. Thank God they came to me. I hope I hear from many more. These children need help their church is not prepared to give.

It is devastating when you realize you are transgender. Nobody asks for this – nobody! And the last thing you need is to hear what I heard from one of my own board members, “This seems rather self-indulgent.” When your alternative has been reduced to suicide, is a person self-indulgent when they decide to remain alive? Hardly. I can excuse the ignorance of our board member. I expected it and had the resources to handle it. But what Leelah heard from her parents, counselors, and church leaders was far more than she could bear. She was already carrying a burden you cannot begin to understand, unless you too are transgender. The counsel she received took that burden to a place no human can bear. Shame on those who drove her there.

Doug and Carla Alcorn were only doing what they had been instructed to do. God have mercy on those who taught them. God have mercy on those who counseled the Alcorn family to take actions whose ends were far, far too predictable.

42 Years

I have not written much on this blog about Cathy, my spouse of 42 years. She has her own story to tell and she will tell it to whom she chooses. Knowing how intensely private she is, do not be surprised if you are not among the chosen.

Last night, almost exactly 42 years after our marriage ceremony began on a chilly rainy Long Island night, I wrote my feelings about Cathy on my Facebook page. I keep that page relatively quiet, so most of you will not have a chance to read it. I have decided to reproduce it here:

I may be the one who transitioned, but Cathryn Faust Williams, my closest companion on earth, is the one who has been transformed, drawing on a fierce inner wisdom, defying convention, becoming deeply spiritual (though delightfully not very religious), living a defiant nevertheless, bringing everything into question, but never losing hope in all that is good and redemptive and beautiful. 

Though our relationship has changed profoundly, my respect, admiration and love are more deeply rooted than ever. Thank you for joining me to create the most marvelous family on earth, for supporting me on this difficult journey, and for not giving up your own integrity and personhood in the process. 42 years ago tonight we began our journey on this road less traveled by, and having you as my companion has made all the difference.

And so it goes.

Barking Into The Crowd

I was on the board of a venerable organization as we discussed a potentially unpopular change. The CEO was nervous. One of the board members said, “The dogs bark, the caravan moves on.” I had never heard the phrase. I imagined a military caravan traveling through town, dogs barking everywhere because, well, that’s what dogs do.

My neighbor has a border collie, Lucky. Without a flock to herd he eagerly awaits every opportunity to retrieve anything – a tennis ball, a rotten apple, smelly socks. Lucky barks at everything that moves on our quiet street. Until I got to know him I found his barking annoying. Now that we are on speaking terms I realize Lucky’s just calling out to everyone he sees, “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!”

I worked in the church for over 40 years. I preached in churches of 15 and churches of 15,000. I know the American church pretty well. Some attend church because they are afraid – afraid of hell – afraid of life maybe. Some come for the community. Others value the worship. Some are what my friend Brian calls “learners.” They see life as a journey, not a destination. They are spiritual seekers who do not expect incontrovertible answers. Others are “landers.” They want every “i” dotted and every “t” crossed. The two groups do not always get along.

I have always been a learner, driven to ask the questions that have no answers. I have not always found favor with landers. I have too many doubts, read too many books. I’ve always tried to speak honestly. Mark Nepo says, “Are we speaking honestly or just barking into the crowd of everything we are afraid of?” It is an important question. Neither learners nor landers are immune to barking into the crowd.

I’m discovering most learners are open to hearing about my experience as a transgender woman. Most landers are more resistant. They have already landed on that subject and found it unacceptable. The Southern Baptists even condemned it on a voice vote – a voice vote! They didn’t even consider it worthy of a tally. The landers took over the Southern Baptist Convention quite a while ago. They purged their seminaries and moved hardcore landers into positions of power. Now that I’m standing outside that world, it all looks like a tempest in a teapot.

I now find myself among a lot of active reformers who live on the liberal side of the street. They have learners and landers too.  Some of them bark into the crowd. I have to be honest though. I find a lot more learners on the liberal side of the street than I found on the conservative side of the street. They speak honestly. They know what they know and what they don’t know and the difference between the two. And yes, I feel more at home among them. Most have no idea what it means to be transgender, but it does not frighten them. They feel no need to bark from a distance, via blogs and sermons and chat rooms. They invite me into their homes and ask about my journey. They puzzle with me over the things none of us understand about what causes someone to be trans. They have taken the approach, “Love first, and the understanding will follow.” Not many of them are Southern Baptists.

I suppose a society needs both groups, the landers upholding cultural norms while the learners keep it all moving forward. I don’t sound very convincing, do I? You’re right, I’m not feeling all that charitable toward landers these days. I’ll leave you to ponder the reason.

And so it goes.

Such Different Souls

I have one granddaughter who is an old soul.  We knew before she was six months of age.  She looked me square in the eye with this penetrating gaze as if to say, “If you only knew.”  It reminded me of the commercial in which the animated baby sings, “Nobody knows the trouble I seen.”

 She has a fraternal twin sister who is definitely not an old soul.  This is clearly her first time on the planet and she is quite convinced it exists only for her pleasure.  When the planet does not behave as she demands, she screams for it to fall into submission.  It hasn’t worked yet, but that does not stop her from trying.  Her sister just stares at her, as if to say, “If you only knew.”

This Little Old Soul seems extraordinarily aware of things I just figured out last Thursday.  She knows it is not about her.  She knows you must be cautious and careful because everyone has an agenda.  She knows to study a person carefully before engaging in any meaningful way.  Her fixed stare is judge and jury, and it is infallible.  I take her with me when choosing a car mechanic, a financial advisor, or someone to cut my hair.  “This’ll look great on you!” the stylist says with a buoyant flair.  Little Old Soul shoots a glance, “She got her beauty license over the Internet – run, run for the hills.”  Her sister would watch them color my hair purple, then laugh hysterically.  Like I said, she’s new to the planet.

Little Old Soul sat at my desk in the study and gave me the evil eye when I walked in to dust the bookshelf.  She was “writing” on my desk calendar – Sanskrit, or some ancient language acquainted with Sufi wisdom.  When the month was over I kept the page.  Archeologists will be interested. On the other hand her sister is fixated with lollipops – green lollipops.  She holds a fistful (hey, what are grandparents for?) with this toothy grin, “I am the queen, and my subjects do as I say!”  Poor thing does not have a clue. Two little munchkins, already with different stories to tell.  Hairs numbered like the sands of the sea, old soul and new, precious beyond measure.

She Showed Up

By all outward appearances it was a successful life. I ran a growing nonprofit, served as an editor of a venerable magazine, taught courses at colleges and seminaries, preached in the rotation at two megachurches, hosted a national television program, wrote a few books and did a lot of other stuff befitting a Renaissance person at the turn of the Millennium.

But my life was not my own. It was handed to me in the cradle, developed in Sunday School, honed in Bible college, and encouraged by a lot of good people who would have panicked if they had encountered the real me. How do I know? Because they panicked when they encountered the real me.

A few years ago my long-term therapist said, “This one thing remains. It is time to find someone who specializes in its treatment.” In my first session with my new therapist someone in the room said, “I don’t think I want to transition to live as a female, but I do think I need to go on hormones.” I looked around and no one was there but the two of us, so I knew the person talking must’ve been me. A threshold had been crossed. Two years later I was on spironolactone to block testosterone and estradiol to give my body the estrogen it craved. My physician said, “Your body has great estrogen receptors. It’s been screaming for this stuff.” I had heard the screams since adolescence.

So, in the summer of my 63rd year I became Paula. I did not want my descendants to come to my grave and read, “Here lies someone who never showed up.” I decided to show up.

I knew a lot of people in the church. In the four months after I incorporated Paul into Paula, exactly 18 of those people got in touch to show their support. (Many more got in touch, but not to show support.)  I’ve met face-to-face with 8 of the 18. Eighteen of the maybe 6,000 church people I spent four decades getting to know. Doing the math, it seems I have heard encouraging words from roughly three tenths of one percent of the people in my Christian Church world.  As I said, I had good reason to keep the real me under wraps.

I have received some messages that were well meaning, but not exactly encouraging. One minister of a large church wrote, “I have to be honest. I would have preferred that you kept this private to your grave.” Another said, “It’s a shame you can’t have a memorial service for Paul, then just disappear.” There were a number of responses along those lines. These were all good people, overwhelmed, afraid maybe, concerned for me in their own way.

I find it ironic that I received a decidedly different response from my friends who are not affiliated with the church. Every single one of those people has chosen to accept the new me.  Every.  Single.  One.  I will let you draw your own conclusions.

In spite of the upheaval of the last year, my life is good. I am calmer, happier, no longer depressed. I still have my moments, particularly early in the morning. Poet Fleur Adcock wrote, “It is 5 A.M. All the worse things come stalking in and stand icily about the bed looking worse and worse and worse.” When those moments arrive I know I am abiding in fear, not hope. Fortunately a good cup of tea and a bowl of Cheerios and I am back in the land of hope, ready to begin a new day as me, Paula Stone Williams, pilgrim on the human journey, recipient of grace, Ambassador-at-Large in The Kingdom of Showing Up.  All things considered, it is a good kingdom in which to dwell.

The End of Our Exploring

In the middle of the road of my life I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost. Dante began his Divine Comedy with a sentiment for the ages.

About fifteen years ago I got lost while hiking in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was a rare day for Colorado, cold and rainy. I was the only hiker on what they call an “unimproved trail,” a truly apropos phrase. Somehow I wandered off the trail onto an elk path and the elk were in no mood to tell me how to get home. I did what I had been taught to do. I backtracked until I found the trail.

I had a strong feeling if I kept hiking forward, following the elk path, I would run into the Emerald Lake Trail. My compass told me I was headed in the right direction, but the trail back was a sure thing. I took the sure thing. I was safe, but I did not get to Emerald Lake, one of the prettiest spots in the park.

When you are hiking alone and there are bears and mountain lions, it is probably a good idea to go back the way you came. After all, it is just a hike. Life, however, does not afford that option. We must go forward, even if going forward takes us down a faint, meandering elk path a very long way from home.

Like Moses and countless others who have set out on what Joseph Campbell called the Hero’s Journey, this past year I left home. I would prefer to have departed with a detailed topo map, trails marked in red, instructions in the back for what you do when a mountain lion sees you on the lunch menu. Unfortunately, the kind of journey I am on does not include maps. I shouldn’t be surprised. When you leave home nobody gets a map, not even Jesus. A compass is all you get, and you don’t have a damn option in the world but to trust it, with its quivering needle pointed toward what you oh so desperately hope is magnetic north

Your mind is not your compass. Your heart is. Women are pretty good at trusting their internal compass. Men tend to let their brains do the deciding and brains know little about matters of the heart. Leaving home, of course, is always a journey of the heart. Initially you reject the call, sometimes for decades. Once you do leave home, you inevitably come to the place where you regret having left on the convoluted journey in the first place. But you follow that quivering needle through the long road of trials, and maybe you get through to the other side. Mark Nepo quotes an old woodsman who said the reason people get lost is because they don’t travel far enough. They lose their confidence and turn around, never knowing they were almost out of the dark wood, almost home.

Jesus answered his last public question by telling his listeners to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. He might have put the heart first because he was just in a mood. Or not. Maybe he put the heart first because he knew good and well that only the heart has the fortitude to keep on traveling through the long dark night. Only the heart truly knows the way home, even if it’s never been there before. And only the heart knows that when you do get home, it’ll look like it’s been expecting you. The light on the porch will be on and there will be a steaming cup of Darjeeling by the easy chair. As you pass through the doorway, the liminal space between darkness and light, you will be greeted by a comforting hand on your weary shoulder – just like the one on the son’s shoulder in Rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal.

Since I changed genders I’ve been spending a lot of time lost on a very faint elk path. Sometimes I want to go any direction that will get me back to something I recognize. But of course that is the voice of reason, the voice of the privileged entitled life, the voice of the kind of control I knew most of my male life. And it will not do. No, the only route home is through the wilderness, over the road of trials, trusting the integrity of the journey to bring me to a place I recognize as home.

It was 1943, a time when home was so elusive for so many. In that unsettling year in the middle of World War II, T. S. Eliot wrote these words:

We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.

Through the unknown, remembered gate

When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning;

At the source of the longest river

The voice of the hidden waterfall

And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for

But heard, half heard, in the stillness

Between the two waves of the sea.

Quick now, here, now, always –

A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)

And all shall be well

And all manner of things shall be well

When the tongues of flame are in-folded

Into the crowned knot of fire

And the fire and the rose are one.

                                    Little Gidding V

                                    Four Quartets

 

Trusting the Flow

Every day I hear the sound of water returning to itself as it falls and swirls its way over cold hard stones. The water is stuck in a perpetual cycle, falling downward only to be pushed back up. Like Sisyphus it rises and falls, going nowhere.

I walk down to the river toward unfamiliar places carved by a storm of biblical proportions. The river, more a stream most seasons, now meanders through fields where Black Angus once grazed. It makes its way into and out of its old riverbed, following the instructions of a fickle Mother Nature. I find peace in the river, even in its altered state. In spite of all the new twists and turns, the river still knows where it is going. The river is moving. The river is not stuck.

I was. Stuck, that is. I’d been through my own storm of biblical proportions and I felt more like the water feature in my backyard, cascading down only to be pumped back to where I began. I read the words of poet Mark Nepo: “Can you endure your uncertainty until it shows you another deeper way?” I did not like Mark Nepo.

Last spring I visited friends in New England. Though it was mid-March, the full moon cast its scattered shadow on fresh-fallen snow. David was not feeling well. Carol and I talked by the fire. She looked at the stuck me and said matter-of-fact, “You cannot go back. You have to let go.” Carol is a prophet. She tells the truth you do not want to hear. You hear it because you know you are loved.

I have to fill the water feature every seven days. The water, weary of its circular journey, gives up and evaporates. My babbling brook is not self-sustaining. It requires electricity to run the pump and a human to fill the basin. The water feature has to be handled. The river does not have to be handled. In fact, if you notice, every time the Army Corps of Engineers tries to handle any river they only make things worse. Rivers should not be handled. They should be trusted.

So, I trust the flow.  Occasionally I try to stand still and withstand the rushing waters, but I am learning that does nothing but exhaust body and soul.  I already know you cannot go back upriver.  Last week, on my blog at rebelstorytellers.com, I wrote about a hike long ago when I did go back.  And yep, sure enough, I did not get where I wanted to go.  Interesting how that works.  Only by moving forward, trusting the flow, do you reach your destination.

Raging storm or meandering stream, we all must let go and trust the flow. It is the only way to reach the freedom of the open sea.