the other day a friend said to me, “it’s like there’s someone new here. i don’t know her very well.”

i asked, “is it like being made new, washed clean?”

“no,” she said, “more like she’s untainted, untouched and not willing to take the garbage any more. it’s me.”

it made me think about images we carry around about ourselves, sometimes the things we try to hide, hidden corners of supposed shamefulness, losses or absences that we assume are ours.

the thought of a bird came to mind: a broken wing, cradled to its side, careful, a bird, longing for altitude of air, the need to stretch, be carried, to beat its wings against the singing wind.

and i began to think of this bird as faith…faith that singes the air with its yearning, a certainty of deeper seeing; birdlike, ever driving for higher altitudes, clamoring to fly, pressing onward, demanding flight.

we are not broken birds, broken hearts or lives, our faith, knowing, certainty hobbled by doubts, improbabilities, fears. these are decoys that try to sideline, ground us, make us believe that our wings don’t work, that there’s no where or reason to fly, no Spirit to prompt or catch us, no updrafts of air and light for wings to dance upon.

what are the things that stall our moments, that try to shroud and crowd and darken out all light, that whisper lies? how often have we heeded them, given up, right on the cusp of certain dawning?

it will not do.

flight is imminent.

the pristine fire of your life is standing witness.

it calls:

live!

live!

live your life;

you are not broken or wasted or left behind.

you, marvel of Spirit’s mastery,

timeless,

on wings of searing Love and Life.

sometimes the rising, the standing, the awakening can be like the whole world coming apart; but really it is an unwrapping, a revealing of here, here, here you are…as you have been so all along…all darkness and clutter burned away, singing: here, here…such a relief to just be here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood.” Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy

“Now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I Corinthians 13

“And as on wings of faith we soar and worship,

Held by God’s love above the shadows dim

Hushed in the grandeur of a heart’s awakening,

Unfolds a joy unknown till found in Him.”  Susan F. Campbell Christian Science Hymnal