The long journey

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It has been a long night’s journey toward day

Inordinate blessings have fallen

Like gentle rain

Upon me

 

Privilege has stalked my path

Easing the way

Affluence

Education

A certain degree of comeliness

And a facile yet fragile mind

 

I have trod through life

Piling success and accomplishment upon

Accomplishment and success

 

And yet

As I stare at this somewhat wrinkled face

Through eyes not no longer quite work

I also see, in those eyes

In the failed smile

A profound sense of failure

 

It is as if the amazing giftedness I care

Has been canceled out by a failure to ignite

An inability to be my best self

 

This is not a new burden

I have carried this thought forever

And have used my gifts poorly at times

 

Flailing, striving, seeking to be born

 

One can make excuses

But in the end it comes down (I think)

To one basic thing

Letting one’s self be loved

And learning to love and accept one’s self

 

We must all, at some point

Take a journey inward

We must wander in, breaching our own defenses

Stumbling, falling, deeply into ourselves

And in that inner space

Where Sacred dwells

 

We must allow ourselves to be embraced

And we must embrace

Ourselves

Loved and loving

We must find fullness, wholeness

 

And then, only then

Can we journey outward

 

Without that inner journey,

We are fragmented inside

Scattered and unsettled

 

And thus we are driven, impelled

To reach out

Needy

Seeking

 

Trying to find, perhaps create value

 

I have spent my life trying too hard

To convince myself, to convince others

That I have value

That I am OK

 

And I have convinced few

Instead I have come across opinionated (well, yes, I am)

Arrogant perhaps

Closed, definitely

 

Always asserting, promoting, pushing, flirting (when I was younger)

Seeking

That which could not be found

 

Leaving behind people

Irritated, hurt, betrayed, turned off, disappointed

Rather than people

Healed, helped, encouraged, love

 

And I have medicated my sense of failure

In ways not helpful

 

And so now,

Worn and a bit tired

Wrinkly and fleshy

I am a bit tired, a bit disappointed

And still unsettled

 

Still seeking to find what I have from time to time found

The peace which passes all understanding

 

Perhaps it is not to late

To let go of all that binds

And become a person with a heart set free

And just be

me

 

(I have always wanted to be poet, but I am primarily prose.  I am embracing that

 I will never, probably, produce the short, powerful type poems that I so love from

 Souls like Jan Richardson, Mary Oliver or even John O’Donohue. I am just me, with my own weird poetic prose.  Thanks be to God)