LET ME BE A FISH

LET ME BE A FISH
June 18, 2011

Today I am a Fish swimming in the One Who sustains my life. I am surrounded by Him. I breathe Him. I am in Him and He is in me. If He were not, I would no more be alive than a Fish stranded on a sandy beach under the fiery gaze of the Sun.

But this morning I walked around, panting for a breath of God, as though I had indeed been cast mercilessly upon some alien shore. My heart begged for some sign of Love, some sign that I had not been abandoned.

How many signs must I be given? The lilacs are sending their sweet scent upon the wind. In the gardens up and down the block iris, purple and white, are unfurling their silken robes while the poppies and the lilies are preparing to burst forth in a Halleluia Chorus! Everywhere I rest my gaze beauty and life are exploding into being.

This afternoon I walk the railroad track that runs along the hillside above my house. Two streams are tumbling down from the folds of these hills that climb up from the Lake. As the track bends around the woods to the trestle, I catch a glimpse of the harbor below me. I stand and breathe the chilly wind and the lilacs for a space of time in which I am lost. I leave my fear and my wounded pride and my desperate pleas for Love there, in the pile of taconite next to the track. I turn for home, walking the six blocks on the rail, one foot carefully set before the other, and then the next, and then again…

I am absorbed in the moment, in this simple act of walking gracefully balanced on the narrow rail. I only fall off once. My heart is light again. I am awake and I am breathing God—as the Fish breathes Him in the water. I have been all the while—even when my head was bowed in such deep agony of imagined loss and abandonment.

I am well. I am whole. I am strong and beautiful and healthy and filled with vibrant energy and vitality. I carry light and knowledge. These are not silly affirmations to trick myself into believing happy lies. This is truth. The lies are the insidious beliefs that find footing in my mind and send roots running deep into my heart—the way the Snow on the Mountain sends it’s tangled roots running all over my garden. It is the Lie that croons a lullaby that pulls me into unconsciousness—into the nightmares where I forget who I am and from where I come. Truth casts away the anchor and I spread my wings and fly—I take the sky—I live, breathing the breath of God.

How is it that I so often exchange this Truth for the Lie, this freedom for the nightmares that wound and bruise, rip and tear until there is no beauty left? Indeed, what foolishness to exchange goodness and grace for suffering and hate.

Today, let me be a Fish swimming in the One Who sustains my life. And tomorrow, and tomorrow and again the tomorrow after that.