Saying For Today: My body is of earth, but my spirit's home is Sky.
Daffodil in Spring
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Even one small glimpse of the faultless infinite resources, perfect creativity, understanding, compassion and forgiveness of God, provided and available for all, is enough to amaze anyone that we should live, in apparently voluntary absence from it, hemmed in by time, space and our own minds, mortal and deprived.
*John Butler. Wonders of Spiritual Unfoldment.
The video for today - "Georgy Girl" - ... I recall listening to the song while my dad drove my two brothers and me through the wood near our home. This was the mid-60s; the song was written in 1967. It is one of my earliest memories. We rode toward the creek in my dad's chevy truck. I liked the tune, and it was blaring through the trees while we meandered along the dirt three-path road to the cold waters where we would swim or fish. I thought the song was about the state in which we lived - Georgia, USA -... this made the music even more pleasing to me. Later, I found out it had nothing to do with where I was born.
Now, to 2020... I listen to the same song and view the video. I sit alone in northern Maine, my dad and one of the brothers having passed from the body, and I age 59. I am living a long way from the site of first hearing of the song.
While listening to the words, at one point, tears begin to flow. Tears keep flowing, like deep hurt gushing from caverns hidden below. The words that evoke these tears start with these lyrics...
Hey there, Georgy girl There's another Georgy deep inside Bring out all the love you hide and, oh, what a change there'd be The world would see a new Georgy girl
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I was raised in a culture in which my soul did not fit - Does the soul fit anywhere? My body is of earth, but my spirit's home is Sky.
When I began to fly free, not in rebellion but in pursuit of truth, the culture did not support me. Soaring was a threat to keeping everyone grounded. I more and more broke away from the constraints of the past, though it led to much heartache, emotional and physical illness, and loneliness. Among the losses was my beloved professorship.
Thankfully, by Grace, not ego, I never let anyone or anything keep me in a cage. I recall being encouraged by the Gospel of Mark 1.11, Jesus' Father speaking to Jesus at his baptism: "And a voice came from the skies, saying, 'You are my dearly loved son, in whom I am well pleased.'" Whatever the cost, I wanted that to be true of me. I knew I was finally accountable to no human, only to One who gave - and gives - me, and all, life.
I am still learning to welcome the unlived life waiting to live through me. More and more of this unlived seeps through, slowly, as it has for the decades since listening to "Georgy Girl" with my dad and two older brothers.
I have learned this over these years...
Freedom is not just a state of being, one we reach; freeedom is a becoming more to be.
The soul, divine, is not content with the status quo, nor need it be - spirit's home is Sky - its joy in its release.
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Could it be spiritual awakening is a beginning of living the unlived life, and guiltlessly? Is the Way not for choosing integrity above approval or popularity and being love above being right? Does not our freedom invite others to freedom, too? Being free, is this possibly your gift to the world?
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Love - call it God, Grace, the Light, Creator, Mother, Father... what you will - I know is what draws out from depths the unlived life. And I know... as a spirit, I am already complete; as a man, I am becoming whole... So you?
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
