26 March 2012

#3: Searching for a place to belong.

In a recent conversation with some friends at a weekly discussion group, the conversation primarily centered around the concept of belonging.  Finding a place, a community, a group of people wherein one belongs.  What no one else in the group realized is that finding such a place and group of people has been a lifelong pursuit of mine.  Periodically I have found groups to join and yet inevitably I depart, usually due to schedule changes at work, or my employment taking me to completely new locales.  So, every group I've ever been a part of has only been a temporary zone of comfort, a brief respite in a never ending search for "my spiritual home".  So, this particular discussion on a recent Thursday evening struck a deep cord within me.

Other aspects of the conversation that evening, and other conversations with the same group have sparked some recent self-realizations that I still remain mostly an outsider, unfamiliar with many of the past group members and still somewhat lost in this new area wherein I'm currently living. With albeit a strong connection to this established group, yet by virtue of being a late addition, I Am and continue to be a bit further out towards the rim, nowhere near the center hub of this group.

This is a position I gratefully accept, since for now this is where I Am, and for now I Am happy to be a part of this group.  Yes, change will inevitably come on it's own accord, and one day I too will depart from the group - say goodbye.  This is not a moment to fear, loathe, desire, or love; but rather it's a moment that is simply destined to be.  My life has been and continues to be a long series of such liaisons.  Most of my friends and the groups I've been a part of pass through my life with only the smallest handful remaining steadfast, with a near continuous connection.

This small handful of friends, and some family members, have witnessed my heights and depths - my successes and my struggles, and through it all they've typically remained better friends to me than I have at times felt I deserved.  I now thank them all with the utmost gratefulness for being a part of the story that is my life.  Thank You!  Thank You!  Thank You!

So, despite all the "higher" education I've completed thus far, my many moments of career success and failure, as well as a small but hearty handful of travels - both domestic and global; I still find myself feeling like I'm on the outside looking in wherever I Am.  But then I know that deep down inside how I feel is a direct reflection of my own insecurities based upon my self-perception which is derived from my personal history from which I cannot escape, but rather learn the lessons I've been presented with and love myself regardless of the outcomes to the various challenges life has dealt me.

So, in the last decade of my life I've finally grokked something the character Buckaroo Bonsai said in one of my cult film favorites from so very long ago, "Wherever you go, there you are!"

In conclusion, I reference my previous post by relating it to the present.  It has been many years since I was a much younger man attending Scottsdale Community College when I had no "Spiritual Family" to speak of, and I was in a place in life that looked familiar, but where I felt so completely alien and totally alone.  Before and since that time I've had a great many "dark nights of the soul", a life full of agonies sharply contrasting some all too brief moments of ecstasy.  It's been said that, "home is where the heart is" and sometimes for me there was no home per se because at that time my heart was mostly closed due to inclement weather, a long, intense, nearly continuous series of storms that eventually subsided.  However, like all things, storms come upon us but now I realize that eventually they must blow over.  So, I've concluded that these few things are what I have to remember:  seekers must eventually find their object(s) of desire - upon the wheel of life we all spin, rising and falling - change is the only constant we can count on - and any life fully lived eventually loves with fulfilling depth sans compare,
-Thank You Edna; my dear, sweet, beautiful wife!

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