Brian’s Reflection: Thursday, April 12, 2012

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do

to intervene in a stormy world

is to stand up and show your soul.

Struggling souls catch light from other souls

who are fully lit and willing to show it.

Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés

I have come to believe that Life is essentially Choice. Faith paths, philosophy, study, meditation … all these things prepare us to choose the principles upon which we will live out our lives. And choose we must.

One of the choices is: I Am Essentially Good, or, I Am Essentially Bad.

I think there is plenty of “evidence” to decide / believe either.

And that’s where the critical freedom of Choice comes in.

I’ve been meditating back over my Life. Being Gay, and especially living for now 45 years in the United States, I could easily have been led to think that I was essentially Bad. But I was given an opportunity to seek out a path of Life. I chose to join the Order of the Holy Cross … where practically everyone was Gay, though I only intuited that in the beginning at the naïve age of 20. And where I also saw the message lived out that we are “created in the image of the God of Love”.

Cutting to the chase: I quickly saw that I had to choose - to make a stand - on how I was going to live out my Life. I had to choose what I believed about myself (and about others and God and Being), and act out of that. I had to “build my house upon a rock”.

In some small way, I worked my way towards being a soul at least somewhat “lit and willing to show it”. I’ve preached perhaps 3000 sermons in my life, and presided at countless Eucharists. But I’m willing to bet that what spoke more about God and Freedom to those I met and served was my choice to believe that God and I and Life were “Good” … a choice that gave a little light to my soul.

Brian+