SISTER WISDOM

Anytime in my heart there is that clenched fist, something is wrong. I have to let go, let go, let go. Fear is the basis for so much controlling, wandering, wishing, grabbing, missing. It blinds me. I let it. I submit to fear.
Let go, let go, let go. Breathe. Accept. Reality is not perfect and we long for perfection. Our whole life can be wasted, trying in a frantic scramble to get things perfect here… Or we can accept with grace the reality we have. The world is warped with sin, with our own efforts to eradicate sin. “…all is seared with trade, bleared, smeared with toil/ and wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell…” (Hopkins).

We – I – I am not perfect. The imperfect cannot make the perfect. The finite cannot fashion the infinite. We are caught in our own fallen selves, trapped souls who instinctively know and crave the divine, the whole, the beautiful but wearing these clay shells, this flesh which hinders us at every step. We see the visions of glory, we try to run, stumble on our own feet. Our own awkwardness, incompetence, fear, limitation, weakness…

We sit and cry and cry, children outside the store window, penniless and snot-smeared and hopeless. Our own dreams begin to taste bitter. We kick the dust, shake our fists, scream out why, and feel the pain of longing turn into something else as we lose hope.
The sickness spreads.
Our shoulders harden into a permanent shrug.
“I don’t care.”
Our faces raise in a permanent sneer.
“That’s so stupid.”

Sometimes the words sound refined, polished, so mature that everyone is fooled. Almost.
“I’m focusing on my career right now…”
“That lifestyle really isn’t for me…”
“Oh, yes, I’m very happy…”
“I’ve just decided to go with something different…”
“Well I was so immature back in college, I see things differently now…”
“We decided it was best to break off the engagement…”
“Sure, it’s very fulfilling, there are a lot of options at this company…”
“Oh, I’m just focusing on my kids right now…”
“Oh, I’m just focusing on my job right now…”
“Oh, I’m just focusing on my education right now…”

Those are our grown-up voices, telling the world our triumph: we have figured it out. Hope is a folly, perfection a silly dream, life a disappointment. We have settled into mediocre. We are resigned. We are all grown-up now, see? You can trust us. We get it.

It’s the half-truths that get us, eat us from the inside out. Complete truth nourishes, feeds and grows our souls. Those half-truths drink us dry.

We quit looking in the store window. We decide it is a myth; we turn our back on the fancies that captured our attention for the moment, we face the filthy street in front, we sneer at the child still captivated by the illusions of the impossible. We turn our backs and don’t see that hanging over our heads in that store window is a sign we never read:
All merchandise free. Inquire within.