by Marcia Blacklidge MS
We all want to create a past that benefits us and our fantasies of who we are and the families and family members we came from. But the truth is different than that.
The truth of us and who we are is buried in the messiness of youth, mistakes, ambitions, ego, love, sex and the biggest mess of all: relationships.
No matter how deeply buried that messiness is, truth has a way of niggling it’s way to the surface and confronting us.
We all like stories that elevate us. But to find the fullness of who we are, we must find the courage to process the messiness of that truth that is concealed behind the lovely stories we cling to.
There is an inconvenient truth that none of us can escape. Life is messy. All lives are messy. All lives are filled with it. No one escapes. Most of us will glibly declare no one is perfect. Few of us are willing to do the work that will bring us to a place of freedom from that truth. Most of us hold our mistakes and the mistakes of others against ourselves and against them.
Sadly, that only makes things worse. At best we only have a partial picture of our lives and of the people that surround us
There is one more inconvenient truth. If one believes in an after life, some kind of life review is included in that belief system. That includes having to watch every step of the life we have just completed, and how we reacted to the messiness we were confronted with and how we dealt with our own messes.
The pain that comes from that review will not be rendered from some unforgiving God judging us. It will come from ourselves to ourselves as the fog of all that messiness is lifted. And it will come from the realization of how much power we had but failed to use it in a way that prospers all. The most pain will come as we are reduced to watching the moments of our lives unfold without the power to effect a positive change now removed. Those that have had near death experiences tell us that pain is beyond words,
We will come to see a final inconvenient truth. The only thing that really matters in all that mess is the love we gave to ourselves and others and the forgiveness we always had an opportunity to render. That is the sum total of all that matters.
Starting today, I wish for each one of us to do the work of processing the messiness in our lives. I wish the fog of our lives to lift and we discover the love and forgiveness waiting to grace the world.
I wish for each of us to find the place where truth can free us. I wish for each of us to process the messiness of life with compassion and forgiveness. I wish for all trails messiness, hurt and pain to be diminished.