An interesting very short story came to me…
I’m wandering, aimlessly, in a barren, dusty desert, probably have been for a long while. Everything feels drearily the same, lifeless. The only thing that breaks the flat horizon is this large rock in the wilderness.
I realize I’ve been in this place a very long time, just wandering. I remember the rock as having always been there -It looks both in and out of its element at the same time, sometimes a glaring incongruity, then. invisible in the wasteland. As time has gone on the siren-like fascination and antipathy that rock back and forth within me toward the hulking mass swing more wildly,, and now, I walk over to it.
An irresistible urge to move it, dislodge it, sweeps me, rising and cresting, then crashing and retreating, like waves trying to advance the shore. I honestly have no idea what value there could be in moving a rock around in a desert, and I can continue to trek, but I’m fully aware of the pointlessness in the excursion. I continue to feel the compulsion, approach the rock. Here, I’m standing next to it, feeling ridiculous contemplating dislocating it with my puny strength. Still, I at last resolve to lean in and push.
I feel a very real presence next to me, giving me an assist. I’m exerting strenuously, so I don’t turn to look, but I can sense his presence, I can even sense the robe he’s wearing.
The rock gives way and rolls forward, not without effort, but far more easily than I expected even with the assist. I turn to look for my teammate, but that presence is now gone in the same seamless flow.
Turning back to the reveal, underneath the rock lies a hatch door. Of course I’m curious, but also trepidatious – I confess to an aversion to creepy crawlies and rotting yuck and other nightmare imaginings. I’m afraid.
I am hesitating and losing ground in my attraction/aversion dance with the hatch. Surprisingly and suddenly, I find myself pushing through the dread and opening it. On the other side of the portal is light! I feel its welcoming gaiety, joyfulness, ease, its beckoning peace. And yet, I remain standing, there, alone in the wilderness. Fittingly, the rock rocks back, firmly covering the escape hatch. End scene, fade to black.
When this story first came to me, I’ll admit to almost disappointment – rock in the wilderness, portal to a light-filled world, yawn, cliche. As I wrote and unpacked it, my arrogance is humbled and I tremble at the depth and strength of support and guidance that is there for me – it is a personalized metaphor for my journey.
Yet, I am still hesitating. As joyless as is the desert, it is that with which I’m familiar. The portal carries with it a sense of doom, annihilation, of death. I don’t remember the magnificence of the kingdom, and so, I continue to equivocate.
As A Course in Miracles points out, ‘Only God’s plan for salvation will work,’ and in faith that God’s plan cannot fail, I accept where I am.
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