A Brighter Day

"And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God." -- The Bible; Revelation 12:6

My whole life I have been withdrawing from one thing or another. Always, like the woman in Revelation, I have withdrawn to a quiet wilderness in one form or another, a place where I can breathe and hear the Voice again. This "place prepared of God" doesn't have to be literal, in the external. It can and must eventually be the wilderness within... the unexamined stories and assumptions that make up your particular life stream. Within your unexamined stories, hidden by them, is the "place prepared of God." It's always with us. Immanuel, God with Us. Always.

There is of course nothing wrong in withdrawing, nor is there anything right about it. It is simply one way of gaining perspective, of seeing through the dream. The only danger lies when we think it is the external act that is the point. The external matters not at all. Its only significance is that it may seem to lead us to the "place prepared of God" within us.

There is nothing to fear in the dream, and certainly nothing to run and withdraw from. And yet there is a need felt by every heart for silence and a deeper knowing. We long for home, for the deepening awareness of God that is our True Self. We have an innate longing for clarity and Truth. Sadly we settle for substitutes, distortions of truth. Just as we substitute for real nutrition with processed foods that don't nourish the body, we substitute for our Spiritual Reality with manufactured truths, dreams and idols that leave the soul starving.

So how do we withdraw from the world of half-truths, this world of slow spiritual starvation? How do we find the "place prepared of God" that is our salvation from the nonsense we have perpetuated in the name of being 'good' or 'practical' or whatever? How do we find our way when our own stories and manufactured values are designed to obscure the way? They are the ego's insurance policy that we will never walk away. Because, so the story goes, if you walk away you will be bad, or irresponsible, or cruel, or thoughtless, or crazy, or (fill in the blank).

What stories bind you? What keeps you from withdrawing, from gaining the perspective that distance will bring you? They are now and always your own creations... they are all made up. Not one of them has any power or any hold on you other than your own determination to be right in choosing them. Give it up. Would you rather be right than happy?

A brighter day dawns when we are willing to withdraw every single day to the "place prepared of God," to spend time listening to a different Voice. This Voice speaks always of Love and Goodness. This Voice never blames, and gently guides us in paths of Good for All. This Voice has no favorites, and no exceptions from its Love. This Love is All-in-All. And yet this Love appears to be obscured by our unexamined stories of praise and blame. And so we flee into the wilderness of our own stories, braving the savage wildness to find our "place prepared of God." It's here, always here. But we have to brave the wilderness to find it.

"Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." -- The Bible; Psalm 30:5