i don't think we'll ever arrive.

Have you ever had one of those moments where everything is clear... you realize that all the tension, angst and uncertainty are wasted on the reality that you are caught up in the whirlwind of an unpredictable journey over which you have no control? Where you recognize that your desire to define and understand are carnal and fleshly and of the earthly mind and do NOT make your experience any easier to take? And that your efforts to define and understand may actually hinder your ability to actually derive from life all that it presents to you and may numb the senses that, though feeling pain, are still feeling, still fully alive, still fully functioning in the ebb and flow of the good, bad and in between... That skipping over the words on the page to get to the good parts means you're missing the point of the story... and unless you slooooooow doooowwwwwn and read it all, you'll never learn. 

This morning, I had a moment. I was reading about tomatoes and cucumbers and pollination and making spaghetti sauce and I found myself doing what I almost always do... skipping or skimming over the words on the page until I found the answers I wanted. Meanwhile, in between, there was so much information that would be beneficial to me as a gardener, that I assumed I would have no use for... maybe I didn't consciously think that, but my actions showed disdain for the majority of the subject matter written on the page and only a narrow agenda with limited ability to acquire knowledge because of the way I was limiting myself.

Without dragging this out, the point is, I realized something, though it may not last. I have been grasping for answers for so long, trying to find and define the lesson that I am supposed to learn, so that I can learn it and be done. I am rushing through my days, looking for Formula God to tell me what to do, as if I am still somehow supposed to earn my stripes in life to be able to graduate to the next level. The ability to accept and receive joy, peace, and happiness in the midst of a life that seems to constantly have the carrot of "better" dangling just out of my reach at all times has created this discontent and unfortunately hopelessness at times. The point is, I am missing it all. I am missing out on LIFE. ALL of it. My capacity for pain also increase my capacity for joy. My capacity for hopelessness increases my capacity for hope. My capacity for discontent also increases my capacity for satisfaction. My capacity to feel sad and angry and to cry also increases my capacity to laugh and feel joy. See, I've been speeding past the feelings, losing out on the opportunity to feel it all, to live, and breathe and move in this space, this season, to explore the fringes of it, a quiet corners and big, loud, wide open spaces of it. I have been searching for a reality that simply isn't there. Because here I am. I am here. I am here now. 

The still, small, voice I heard today was: If you want to learn, you need to slow down and read it all. Feel it all. 

It's time to feel it all.