I thought I knew

I thought I knew a lot.  I mean I have 3 college degrees.  Did well in school.  Had good jobs.  Nice husband.  Nice house...had it all figured out.

And still I searched for something that seemed just beyond my reach. 

I turned it all upside down.  Topsy Turvy.  Caused pain.  Wretched with guilt and pain tears came down like a ocean-fueled waterfall.  Night after night on my knees, sometimes fully face down in my own puddle of sorrow.  Knowing and yet not knowing.  Met with understanding from people I never took the time to understand.  Met with questions and found no answers would form upon my lips.  Some things are simply too deep to give voice.  The smallest gestures, smiles, pats, kindness to one so undeserving meant the difference at times between rest and restlessness.  No one could hurt me worse than I could hurt myself.

I thought I knew...myself, others, friends, family, faith, life, art, theatre...but I didn't.  Like a newborn I took it all in.  And sometimes I wailed with lungs full of primal cries and sometimes glistened with the wonder and beauty of all that I could now see for the first time...again.

I can now take a moment and catch a glimpse in the eyes of some people and see that there is so much more than what is on the surface.  It is worth the time to stop and connect.  Even if it is just with the look of "I know.  I know.  It's okay.  It will be okay.  You will be okay."  There are people who need my understanding and love and kindness.  I know that now.  Having been to the wailing wall, you recognize those who are headed there.  It's important to take their hand and kneel with them at the wall...to go back as a guide and visitor.  They don't need my advice.  They don't need my opinion.  They don't need my religion or my god or demi-gods.  They just need my hand, my breath... my time.

And yet the ironic thing...the most amazing grace and forgiveness was defined for me by the one who by all accounts had every right to resist it.  And that, I did not know would happen.  And for that, I am forever changed.

And so, I dwell in a new place of belonging and yet it has the feel of some place I've known all along.  And I thought I knew people, but I don't.  I thought I knew God, but I didn't.  I thought I'd seen so much but really nothing at all.

And yet...not knowing is...for now...the path I must take.  Because faith is traveling on the road to a destiny not revealed.  I thought I knew where I was going, but now I do not know where I am headed.  And yet, I know that when and if I arrive, it will be a dwelling filled with the artwork of my traveled heart.