As I am challenged by the new surroundings met with traveling upon an open and alien pathway, everything is a surprise to me.
Former me, full of understanding and precise answers is vanishing in the wake of curiosity and question-asking.
I find it a struggle battling with the veracious need within me that begs for me to discover the genuine truths as I search.
That's the ending result, as of yet.
Beauty can be revered in more than one embodied expression of tradition or spirituality.
Now, I am turning to seek the greatness and mystery that is to be experienced in various forms.
These modes of reality are becoming more awakened and heightened in the hungry openness I provide, in surrender to the idea that I believe the idea of God and who "he" is, and how we should invest our breaths, moment to moment, is more than what I can figure out.
Hell, it's God we're talking about here, right?
So, don't leave it to me, or to someone else to define how you'll spend this life in conscious efforts of gratitude, adoration, and compassion for the elements in our existence.
Let me make it a note here, that before this point in my current standing in life, I was very close-minded.
I attached myself to leaders and doctrine, and allowed them to decide for me every movement that I should make.
Right down to the pleasure of other's approval, I'd spend my time adhering to the "only rules" that have survived our human race.
With dedication I banded with like minds, and rejected the rest.
I even cast my husband out of my heart for the sake of the law which had won over my attention.
It took several painful years of dying to myself, and removing the layers of deception to provide for me a new escape into reality.
And what a scary place to be.
When you've turned your head, and run away from a burning city, in this case, the religious ideals I was bound by, the journey is terrifying.
I am still troubled each time I gaze upon my past, in comparison to how deeply I feel about life and humanity now.
How could I have rested so confidently in the security of a model that told me to renounce other living human beings?
How could I have allowed peace to settle in my soul, when I had to elevate my status over the lifestyles and decisions of others?
These other people had hearts, too, and weren't as demonic as I had dreamed.
But my attitude and my expressions of love weren't pure and limitless.
I was limited, and I was no angel when it came to the real love in my heart, that had yet to be awakened.
This much I know: Good people are everywhere.
They don't only exist under a steeple with folded hands.
They don't have to be married to a singular series of ideology.
Real people can be found when simply being real people.
Authenticity lies in the hands of people who give their truest of hearts in the vulnerability of present moment and honest mind.
And that is what stirs hopefulness within me.
That I may be willing enough to risk myself for the sake of love and limitless transfer of compassion toward other human beings.
