Dear Pneuma,

I think I am mine.  I live as though I gave life to myself.  I continue to make choices to protect and promote "me," as though I need some sort of manager or advertising executive in charge in order to exist.

Here are some things I want:
As the song says: "To keep my heart wide open. To love and have no fear."
To feel peace and satisfaction.
To live a purposed life connected to other people.
To explore my potential abilities.
To make choices from my character.
To trust myself.

Here are some other things I want:
Status in my social group
To be admired by many
To have a major impact on world events
To be physically strong, resilient and inexhaustible
To be removed from messy emotions, unsuccessful projects and people who cannot think as fast as I
To be self-sufficient

Yet, under and around each of these things is a smallness.  They aren't very imaginative.  They don't include any number of experiences, opportunities, and realities.  They are narrow, individually focussed ideas.  The achievement of none of them will even touch the purpose of life itself.

In the context of Life, there are an eternity of lives.  There is an infinity of life-forms.  All lives become significant in their impact, and each life becomes insignificant in its individual intents and desires.

Something I believe: God doesn't lose sleep about the "me" I create (the clothes I wear, the people with whom I sleep, the promises to which I live up, the debts I leave unpaid).  God is concerned with the "me" I am.  That which is my sum total.  That which I was at the beginning and will be when I am no more.  God knows what that is and intends it for some reason absolutely beyond anything "I" want.  Something else I believe: God is good, and that which God intends for my being is better than anything I can imagine for myself.

That is the only "I" and it is joined by all the other "I's" of existence and the amoeba bears as much guilt and glory as the human being.  Which brings me back to my wants and my desires.  Which brings me back to that place where my desire to "be good" outwits my ability to believe I am exactly as God would have me be.  It brings me back to the place where I feel I am entitled to simplicity and ease just because I followed the appropriate diet, spoke the polished words, crossed all "t's" and tried to be kind.

God is not a set of superstitions and rituals.  God is not the buffer between me and what is.  God is not an escape from the times.  God is not hibernation for broken hearts, shattered dreams, and human chaos.

Instead, God is the language with which I name myself and what is, extended backwards to the beginning of all things, extending forward beyond time.  If I can learn how to sing in that language,  maybe some of those things I want will happen or disappear.

Practicing,
Cobalt Dreams