How often do you give attention to the rigidity and flexibility of your thoughts, words, actions and non actions? How alert are you to what you let come into your awareness, what you filter out, what you retain and what you let go of? Over the years I’ve become more and more aware of what I’ve allowed to flow into my life and what I’ve directed out of it. I’ve been looking at the many roads traveled and less traveled that have brought me to this moment in time. It’s an inspiring, enlightening and humbling process.

I remember as a five year old standing at the back door of our house kicking the locked screen door and yelling at my mom to let me in while she was mopping the floor. The first kiss with my sweetheart at the age of fifteen that lasted an eternity is forever etched in my memory. The day I got on a bus after being drafted by the Army and the return ride after I failed the physical is also marked as a turning point in life. These and  many other significant events have come and gone, moved me on and helped me grow.

The more decades of living we have the more we can look back at the comings and goings of life’s many events and find significance in them. Reflection informs us about the nature of our evolving trajectory and the many conscious and unconscious decisions we make to form our personalities, dispositions and dreams. Life becomes an ever flowing river and rooting tree that we are privileged to see and even more privileged to be. Through awakened reflection life unfolds in mystery and wonder.

What I’ve come to know in my not knowing, is that in letting go of anything, including our breath, there’s an in-between space before what comes next. This moment of mystery is not something we give much attention to. As an example of this, consciously breathe in. Hold this breath for a couple seconds then let it go. Breath it out as far as you can and hold it there for as long as you can…………………..What happened? How long between letting the breath come, letting it go and come again did it feel to you; a couple seconds, an eternity? Our lives our connected to these in between moments.

Do any of us really know what will come when we let go the so called security of this particular moment? When you say you have faith in what’s going to happen, what does this mean? How often have you been disappointed at what happened or didn’t happen that proved to be a whole new creation for your greater good? Can loss be gain and gain be loss? Can we simply walk the journey of life one step at a time accepting what comes and goes? Can our stillness be our movement, our Presence be our Product?

What if faith is not a set of doctrines and dogmas but an opening to something new, an awareness, a fresh start to any encounter or change. What if it’s that small “Yes” that reverently bows to what’s showing up in our lives to move us from rigidity to flexibility,  knowing to not knowing, hubris to humility, fear to love? What if faith is a flowing dynamic process rather than a stagnant static one? What kind of difference might this make for the world? What would you let come? What would you let go?

I’m presently sitting in between where I’ve been and where I’m yet to be in spite of the uncertainty. I’m emptying out who I’m not to discover who I can be, living in an ever changing reality. It’s both transcending and including, easy and difficult. It’s a living paradox of compassionate mystery where hearts give and gather, expand and contract. Here light shines in the darkness where more is revealed, less concealed. Letting come is letting go, leading us all into Life’s eternal flow. Where are you? What do you know?

• Give yourself permission to look at faith in the ways described above.What difference could it make in how you see yourself, others and Life? What’s coming and going in your life that needs to be acknowledged, embraced, reverenced, and appreciated?
• Gently embrace the Who that’s Truly You, the depths of your Being. Take heart in the call to give and receive, let come and let go, be gentle and strong in the divine flow.
• With lovingkindness, reflect on your roads traveled and less traveled. What patterns do you notice? What rhythms have been present as you’ve come to be who you are, where you are, why you are? What subtle energies are beckoning you onward? What is wanting to come and wanting to go?