Today I followed the Spirit and went for a drive, to nowhere in particular for no reason other than to go for a drive. I had not planned on going for a drive, but I left the church and thought, I think I’d like to go to the park and sit by the water for a little while. So I went there and watched the sunlight dance on the water, little sparkles of sun flitting across the water as the wind rippled both water and light …
And then I decided I might sit somewhere else so the sun would be at my back, but when I stood up, I realized, Oh, I’m done here. Whatever I needed there, I had found – or it had found me – and so it was time to move on. But to where? Home? I didn’t know … yet.
But when I got in the van, it came to me – I know, I’ll go for a drive! And it was just me, and nowhere else I needed to be, and nowhere I was needed to be, so why not? (And how many moments like this are there for a mom of four with a full life … so if the opportunity opens up, follow it! 🙂 )
So I headed south out of town and down a county road, and just let the miles roll under my wheels. My window open and the soft, spring-smelling wind rushing in and ruffling my hair. The sunlight making the corn stubble gleam gold. The valleys and the turns in the road. Another world, it seemed to be. The sun and the wind and me.
It felt like one of those journeys you don’t know you need to be on until you are on it … and sometimes miss because you resist the whisper-nudge in your mind and soul that says, let go and just follow the flow of life, and see where you might go, just today, just for now. Let go and see where you go!
Sometimes, it is okay to go where you know not, to go without knowing yet where you are going, to let plans go and just go, to follow wherever your heart, your soul, follows the Spirit. A free-spirited following of the Spirit, a free flow …
Aimless? Reckless? My little adventure might seem a bit of both, but really, it was neither … it was an intuitive letting go, and it ended up filled with purpose and purifying peace.
It was like a driving meditation, instead of a sitting meditation or a walking meditation!
Because I found a rich stillness, a worshipfulness, and an exuberant liberty I could not have found, and the Spirit spoke to me in ways I could not have felt or heard if I had stayed where I thought I ‘ought’ to stay.
If I had resisted the simple impulse that said to me, Go, let go, just go? Then I would have missed the gift of the simple, pure freedom of just being, and just being with the Spirit as it was being with me … I would have missed what my heart, mind, and soul needed, today. I would have missed the lessons and the answers waiting for me on that journey …
To summarize them simply:
If it is a question of letting go, the answer is … let go!
Surrender to the flow of spirit in your life … wherever it may lead, follow with trust. It’s okay to let go of the need for certainty and control, to accept not knowing fully, and to follow without knowing. Find the comfort that there can be in uncertainty and impermanence.
If it is a question of loving, the answer is … Love!
Love hard, love deep, love whole-heartedly in a whole-souled way, love fiercely and fully … and if heartbreak or soul-ache comes from it, do not fear to grieve the same way. Be willing to grieve as deeply and fiercely as you’ve loved. Better the grief that might come from loving and losing, than the grief that comes from not letting go of fear and just loving …
If it is a question of being, the answer is …. BE!
Be free, be truthful, be love, be grace, be courage, be compassion, be peace! Do not so much act or advocate for change, as BE change. From the right being, the right doing will follow, the right change will follow.