sadeewhip

Yesterday I woke up average. It was so freeing. I am not extraordinary or special or unique. A heavy sigh of relief came from deep in my chest.

I have spent the last several months with average humans. We have been going through the painful journey of cancer ravaging the body of a once vital man. And these people, none of whom you have heard of or ever will hear of, are the most remarkable people. They are remarkable because they are fully human - deep, real, caring, heart-centered - human.

For years I have been focused on career and success. I knew when I started that journey that it was not quite right. I left my spiritual roots and ventured into a new world.  I was determined to make something of myself.

Striving to be successful is really hard work. But so is becoming fully human. Becoming successful takes determination and an unwavering faith and commitment to the goal. Becoming fully human takes massive courage and the love and support of community.

He died. The cancer took over. The family loved and grieved and celebrated and marched through with more grace and love than I have ever experienced.

So I am sitting here facing a grey sky and light rain on a cold October morning. And I feel numb to success. I feel untouchable by the striving.

All I want to do is love people and belong in a community. I want to help others understand love and suffer less and celebrate more and live from their hearts.

But the juxtaposition of the last several months with the tv and the radio and the superficial make me want to stay in my home and not leave. I feel intensely sad that so many people want to be extraordinary when it seems to me that being fully human is the most courageous and wonderful thing a person can achieve.

Why do we want more than that? It must be that we don’t understand what it really is to be human. Judgment and ignorance, perhaps, opaque the extraordinary in the average - the miracle that is each and every one of us.

I don’t have a conclusion. These are just thoughts. And I don’t know what I am going to do, now, as an average person. So I’m leaving it up to God. I am turning myself back to a road that has become dusty and overgrown from lack of use. And if I can be an instrument of love and grace then I will be more blessed than any riches I could manifest through my own striving.