Inshallah

My student from Afghanistan often says "Inshallah" meaning "God Willing." I've been thinking a lot tonight about what God's willing to do for me. He's done so much already, I feel bad asking for anything else.

A very wise woman once said that the Creator sends you what you need. You ask for what you want, but you're given what you need. We think we need what it is we want, and that's where the trouble starts.

So I'm trying to take it from the Creator's perspective. Does He feel I need some added loss and suffering in my life? And, do I? No, I think that's not it. I don't think of my Creator as being that way. Maybe He feels I need to cry more. I don't really do it much, except recently. Maybe He's sick of watching me stoically and cynically glide through life. There's a certain irreverence that comes in the package deal of me, and perhaps that's been grating on his last nerve, too.

In my storyline for Ogoun on Michigan Avenue (SPOILER WARNING) I follow up on a line in The Summer of Pomba Gira. It's where Jonah and Evaline are talking and she gives him a gift but asks him not to open it while she's there, because whole worlds fall apart when she cries, she tells him. I'm not looking at the book as I write this, but that's the gist of it. In the sequel, we discover that in fact, it's true.

The thought came to me, because often that's how I feel when I cry, that my world is falling apart. So I just don't give into it, because I'm a firm believer in keeping my world together.

Lately, however, many of my worlds have fallen apart. Some so irrepairably, that it's beyond my comprehension how it could have happened. I've gotten so shocked and numbed by it, that tears are the only release, and the peace they bring after.

An Owl once told me, get ready, be prepared, you're going to find yourself crying all the time soon! Really, he's a man who's an owl, but I try not to hold that against him.

I think I'm mourning my former ability to co-create goodness in this world. Somehow, I seem to have lost that gift. I'm pretty sure I didn't misplace it. The thing about co-creating goodness in the world is that I've relied on other people to maintain their relationship with me, and work toward the same vision. At this point, I think it's just me and the Creator left in my crashed apart worlds.

I'm not quite sure if He wants me to pick some pieces up and rebuild, or just walk away and start over completely. I'm not sure I understand all of it, or any of it.

Oh, don't get me wrong, the contest is still happening. It's about the choices I make. Hold devestation in my heart, or embrace love? This is why I know that the Creator selected a champion for the cause based on attributes and experience for this particular contest. He knows more than anyone the devestation I've seen. He knows that I gravitate toward the good, toward the positive. Takes me some time, but eventually I get there.

Meanwhile, there's the question of what to do in the here and now? I'm kind of shocked and numb by the sheer collateral damage around me. Like, what just happened? I didn't expect to be here. But I must be here for a reason. There are at least three reasons for everything that happens, and I don't have to know what the reasons are. But I certainly didn't expect to be here, in my present here and now.

So I'm thinking that the Creator has a plan. I don't have a clue as to what it is, but I'm signing up for the ride. Maybe all of this collateral damage around me isn't necessarily about me and what I need to learn on my journey. Maybe it's about other folks journeys and what they need to learn. But it hurts so damned much, even if it's not about my journey, when mine is intertwined with theirs. Really, it's the untwining that gets me every time.

The loss and letting go, and that's what I mourn for as well. I don't think I'd go to the place of asking the Creator why this is happening, because I don't ask the question unless I really want to know the answer. But I find myself asking these days, if all is beyond me, and all is beyond repair, and it's just you and me, Creator, standing amidst the rubble, can you tell me why it's always the ones I love the most that are taken from me in the cruelest of ways? So that in my mourning, I am always, invariably alone, just me and the Creator? Any why, while I'm asking, is it that I'm always so busy that I have little time to be able to mourn the loss?

I am willing to be your champion, Creator, to go to battle as you wish, but inshallah, can you provide for me just one person along for the ride this time round? One that has suffered and is growth oriented, and sees the battle as an adventure?

All will be provided in due time.