Spirit

"The Spirit is like the wind, it blows as it pleases, it cannot be controlled."

Reading a book for class awhile ago on the Spirit, I was reminded again of its unpredictability, its tremendously passionate way of refusing to be kept locked up and controlled. To those who like control (me) this carries with it a reckless intimidation.

"The future really is unknowable. Otherwise it is a play of the past."

I am a master of prediction. I calculate what will happen. I measure the ins and outs of the day, the conversation, the meals, the places, the sleep. Because I don't want to let go of the past. And because I don't want to let go of it, I don't allow the future. To live not knowing the next move, to live with my hands open instead of in a fist, to live embracing instead of bracing - that is reckless.

That is life with the Spirit. The reckless Spirit that moves in unbounded freedom, in imagination run wild.

I think of a dog that gets abused by its keeper. It gets hit enough times, the dog will turn skittish, scared to death at the slightest motion of the owner. It's been taught, and it has learned well, to be wary, to keep an eye out, to watch for any movement, any sign, to always be ready. Don’t let your guard down, or you’re done. Stop for a moment and your ass is beat. Any motion and the dog flinches, ready for the blow. The dog's reality of the world has been shaped by the past. Its future is set. Its future is clinched.

I think of my past, the past that has shaped my reality. The past that has shaped my future. The past that has set my future. That past that has clinched my future. If I continue to live in these paradigms, these realities that appear way too real, my future is set. It will be what it was. What was always will be.

What was always will be. That just sucks. That is so boring. That is like the weather always being the same. Not just the same, but always cloudy. A calm, safe, 50 degree cloudy day over and over. There is no waiting, no hope, no looking forward, just the same. What was always will be. There’s no need to think. There’s no need to wonder. Just the same damn thing.

Unless. Unless there was something that was not bound by any single reality. Unless there was something that named its own reality, a reality that said it could never be owned by any single reality, that it would never be bound by any stifling, dogmatic system to keep it in line, to keep it under wraps, to keep it from being to much of a hassle, to keep things safe. Unless there was something whose very nature held freedom, gave freely, whose very nature was to live into and engage the unknowing. Unless there was something whose very nature did not seek to control power, but to enable, to empower, to bring intimacy instead of exclusion. Unless there was something that did not coerce you into some conformed pattern, but instead joyed in your uniquely spontaneous humanity, that allowed you to express and feel and fail beautifully.

Unless there was something whose very touch upon you stopped you in your tracks. A Spirit that made you take a step back. A Spirit that made you think. Not in the sense of a mind racing a mile a minute, but a mind that could be still, and really think. A mind that said, wait, does it really have to be this way? Why do I live in such fear? Why do these things still have such a hold on me? What am I so afraid of? What if I didn't have to be looking around, waiting to get hit? What if I didn't have to flinch at the slightest motion? What if I could sit? What if I could close my eyes? What if I could still my body? What if I could actually engage the moment, without the static of the past, without the worry of the future?

I believe that when these questions are met with the imagination of the Spirit, the fear and shame that have bound us with their rules are scared shitless. They don't know what to do. They are being engaged by the Spirit that that knows no confining paradigm, that dreams without limits, that is bound by no past.

The ever-present Spirit leading, senses engaged, mind stilled. The only place where true beauty can be known and experienced, where one is still enough to sway in awe of the haunting cadence of life, where the rhythm of the Spirit meets the rhythm of the human story. I believe it is in these moments, in this stillness, where the only sound one can hear is heaven crashing into earth.