Journey to the Well of Transformation ~ wonderings from my journal

Journey to the Well of Transformation

Day 1

How do I describe my seeking? 
Where do I begin the story that exposes
relationships
challenges
detours 
pain 
questioning…
When I was looking for answers, wanting the world to change, hoping for it to be fixed.
When I was waiting for the promise of a new earth without even realizing my partnership with it.

When was the moment I realized I was home?
That all my wandering, seeking, trusting the world more than myself, finally brought me to rest right where I am?
What is the moment my heart finally wept in experiencing words I claimed to know in my head for so many years?
When did my self-compassion and grace finally go so deep that I came up inside the other…recognizing they are human beings carrying the image, the very presence of God.
That they too are wanderers trying to find their way home yet lost in the traffic of the world
Dehumanized 
Categorized
Subject to violence
Blinded by privilege
Deaf to others’ experiences
Misled by seeking gratification, power, material fulfillment, when the only fulfillment is dignity in relationship with the dignity of all people.

When was the moment I realized I was home?
I don’t think there is one moment but the gradual awareness that my outward journey returned home again and again.
That the very place I rested from my travels is the place I was seeking.
It is an opening and re-opening of my heart. 
It is being invaded and re-invaded by the Spirit.
It is in filling and emptying – wandering – and filling again.
It is being content, then thinking my contentment is beyond my reach and I’m led astray in search of it, only to return home again.
It is drawing from the well of eternal grace, the waters that gush up from within forever deeper, forever nourishing.
It is not a moment but the constant returning, drawing, resting, and noticing that opens my eyes and heart to the same process in the other ~ who may not yet recognize the well from which they draw because the world of experiences has taken away their bucket.

Day 2

I wonder today, amid the painful experiences and the pain of denial, how to share the bucket sorely needed for transformation? The bucket that draws from our original heart.
A turning and returning to remember…
We all entered the world in the same way.
None of us chose to be born.
We quickly forget our beautiful, vulnerable nakedness as we are dressed by words, actions and experiences we soon claim to be our own. 

Transformation…
Turning and returning to our beginning, our unity, our common dignity.

Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.
Abide in me and I abide in you.
If we love one another, God lives in us.

This is the message Jesus lived,
Turn and return.
Cultivate your inner life – be healed of the trappings of the world’s lies.
This is not about religion, but calling us to return to our common ground, the Truth residing in all humanity. Love one another. 
It is a call to release our defenses and the false identities to which we cling because it’s what we’ve been taught, so we can recognize our self in the other.

Transformation…
Involves sitting with another as they relate the pain of racism, discrimination, oppression that they have experienced. 
Involves willingness to accept my story is not the only story and listening to others’ can break through barriers and bring us closer to our common identity that lies beneath generations of layers that separate us.
Involves change from the inside out, from understanding to action in the realization we are one humanity in one world.
We can destroy the world and ourselves, or, we can turn and return to love one another with dignity.
Every moment is a choice.

I choose to be in this together.