The Patchwork Quilt

Starting from our youth, there is a story we have been simultaneously reading and creating about ourselves.  Most of the time, it is not terribly well written or interesting.  It's kind of like a thrown together patchwork quilt.   A hodgepodge of ideas and different pieces of cloth that don't really match.  We did the best that we could with the material at hand.  See, our mind is like that.  It creates a story out of the available information.  We do the best that we can to make sense of things we experience.  But often times, the stories we tell are simply reruns from patterns and narratives we put together long ago.

There is even a story we tell about the spaces in our quilt where there is no story.  Those moments when we drive to work in the morning feeling empty or disconcerted.  We may think we are missing something, but really what we are experiencing is a gap, an experience that is not captured by our old ragged patchwork quilt of a story.  And we may think the hole in our story represents something wrong, some place we should not go, some feeling we should not experience.  And some may call this gap in the story "depression" or "loneliness" or "anxiety."  The natural inclination is to turn away from the gap and not look into it.  But the gap should be welcomed as an opportunity.  The gap should be examined closely as it is perhaps a portal to a new and different story.   And if we look and listen to it closely, and feel what its energy is trying to tell us, we may find that the gap is connected to our heart. For our quilt often tells the story of our mind and our memory.  If we want to create something new, it comes from our heart.

So we can follow the hole in our story.  See where it leads.  Do not be afraid of it.  Do not think it is something wrong or that you are losing your mind or that it is "depression" or that you will not come back.  This is what you came for when you started.  If you remember, you were tired of your story.  You wanted adventure,  you wanted change.   If you can just "be" within that gap, and listen to its beating heart, you may find a new story developing which adds new breath and dimension to your life.  Stay with it my friend.  Stay thirsty my friend.

And if not, then it is nothing more than a tawdry tale of sin and redemption, intermixed with unyielding hope amidst the vast torrents of remorse and despair.  And in this day and age, you can simply change the channel.