confessions

I went to smell a flower and my lip was met with a host of prickles. Startled, I wondered how many times people had encountered the prickles in me. 

Drawing closer to appreciate beauty -- pricked by protectors. 

I got to wondering, before -- how we grow old & weary and our retirement is never to our glory -- perhaps this is because our vocational lives remain hidden? When the day is over and the job is done, we retire to evading our fear, unaware of our own vocations. Vocation that continues, despite the time and the year and the 'phase of life' we find ourselves in. 

Perhaps we are most afraid for others that which we fear for ourselves. My loneliness. Slow, ever so slow -- tip toeing into a solitude that enlivens others, rather than living out of a deep inner loneliness that only ever takes from them. 

Breathe. 

It does hurt -- facing illusion and allowing reality to break through. But it's a different kind of pain to living in illusion, asleep and unaware. It's a relief and a grace.