I decided to create a new blog, give it a new name, because in many ways I feel like I am now coming from a totally different perspective. Devotional life begins at your first kirtan, your first book, your first Doughnut Plant experience. But then devotional life begins again. It begins when you reach a point of internal conviction, when you make a promise to God that you are never turning back and you abandon all things standing in your way.. standing between you and God.
In many ways this process continues throughout our lives, but in a very definitive way, at some point we all choose. At some point we understand that there is ultimately nothing else to live for, there is nothing else to pursue, than a relationship with God in the most intimate way possible.
It was once described to me that making a decision quite literally means eliminating all other options. Choosing, or deciding, is as much a positive action in one direction as it is a negating of all other options. It's black and white in that sense, concrete, pointed and clear. Like many of the people closest to me, I have made that decision, to give my life to developing my relationship with God. And making that decision doesn't translate into a renunciation of the woman formerly known as Erin, but it does mean that from now on, I make every effort to listen to God's voice in my heart, and only step in a direction that will lead me closer to Him.
Because of this shift in perspective, the last year and a half of my life has been spent in transition. We all have things, people, positions in our lives that we've become accustomed to leaning on, counted on as security when doubts arise. These "lean-ons" are tangible to us, verifiable through our senses. But, when we decide to let those things go, to try walking without crutches, within our first couple steps we fall down hard. After taking my first few steps, and falling, I stared down at my broken legs in awe.. in shock, and actually in despair.
When we hide behind the veil of "pseudo-independence", thinking that we can manage and even excel in our lives on our own, without God, we are actually sitting in an emptiness that is devoid of any sense of love. Seeing that we live this way is deeply disturbing, and serves as an impetus for change. But, what we don't anticipate is that when we throw the crutches away, instead of standing tall and proud, we realize we never even learned how to stand, let alone walk. We are left in a fairly helpless position. We are left out in the middle of the ocean, out too far from where we came, and not close enough to where we are headed. We start to drown. We start to fight and resist. We grab and reach for anything that might save us.. but if we're lucky, we will be unsuccessful.. and then somehow, we learn to breathe underwater. This analogy of learning to breathe underwater has been presented to me on a few occasions, depicting what it means to surrender to God, and to give up resisting, abandoning our fear of death.
So as I move forward on this journey, I felt that an appropriate title to this blog would be "unveiling grace" because as I try to open my heart to God, each step of the way I am learning that the only reason I have been able to go anywhere or do anything is the grace of God. He is carrying me because my legs are completely broken. But, the harder I fall, the more I begin to understand it's not about my ability to walk.. because this journey is not about me. It's about giving up my independence and depending fully on God to carry me where I need to go.. and learning that through His grace, I acquire new legs that allow me to walk a different path that I would have never walked on my own.
