Glancing

The need to belong is such an integral part of me that I cannot remember a time when I didn't long for more of it.

As a very young child the world was orderly, simple and safe. I was near the bottom of a hierarchy that ended in my grandparents and moved on down to my baby brother.  I was the big kid.  My job was to be sure the little kids were okay.  My mother's job was to be sure I was okay.  My father's job was to be sure we were all okay.  Whether it was true or not, that was the way I understood it.  And it was enough.  One of my favorite places was all together in the car at night, close together away from everything else.  If everyone else went to sleep I hung over the back seat and talked incessantly to whoever was driving.  Absolute attention.  Total bliss!

Later I discovered other groups.  The Jewish Rabbi down the street,  the Catholic Cathedral nearby, both hugely patriarchal cultures with unique forms of dressing and strictly defined places for everyone.  I liked the Yiddish songs, the sister's habits, the guitar music at the convent when I visited there as a candy striper, the folk mass when I went to college.

My parents were an unorthodox mix of Episcopalian and Baptist who seldom attended any church, so I was in awe of the communion rites, the high church hymns of one and the fervent rhythm of the other.  I yearned to really belong to one or the other.

I wanted to identify with some absolute, some place where someone knew all the answers, where there was no question of what to wear, or say, or be, or do.

I married someone who grew up in a totalitarian church family and brought my children up in his church, to a point.  During that time I experimented with various ways of finding God through less orthodox methods like drumming or meditation, which was much like centering prayer.  I read books from other cultures, Kahlil Gibran, Thich Nhat Hahn, the Upanishads, Harner's Shamanism, and many others.  Everyone except me seemed to have found the magic words, the Way, the path.

And then one day, while sitting quietly all by myself, a door opened and eternity lay before me. I felt the glancing blow of such unbelievable love that I have never quite recovered.

There is no trick, nothing to do, no magic words, not even a path in reality.  It is here, always here and when I am here too then I do belong and all the answers are either apparent or irrelevant.

It is the blessing of being. Everything else is just a prop, a way there that is okay, but not necessary.