You’ve Changed/Risky Growth
“You’ve changed”. His eyes bore into me as if I had committed an unforgivable crime. It was a pronouncement delivered with disgust and contempt, and with the severity that felt like a sharp slap across my face. My cheeks turned crimson and my neck flushed as I fought back tears of shame. My secret betrayal was out, I could no longer deny that I had changed my mind about what I thought, about what I believed, about everything. It wasn’t just my religious system; it was my politics, my parenting, my values and my understanding of the cosmos. It was an overhaul of the first half of my life, of what I had built much of my identity on, and I feared I was like the foolish man in the scriptures who built his house upon the sand, and now it was crumbling around me.
That was ten years ago and I don’t think that anymore. I gently smile at myself now remembering that the radical act of me “changing my mind” wasn’t so much about me changing my mind. Rather, it was as if the Love that has always guided me and held me was gently massaging me and transforming me, showing me more of itself. Like it loved me so much, it wanted to reveal to me that it transcended the systems, structures and ways I believed I needed to contain it. No religion or dogma could own or lay claim to this Love. It was so amorous and generous, it poured to and through any place where it could flow, like living water.
This mystery is the great love of my life, it always has been, and it refuses to conform to human constraints. It won’t bend to rules or dogma. It floats on the breeze, and beckons me in the darkest night. It draws me in through sunrises and new moons, my lover’s touch and snow capped mountains. It is the greatest adventure of my life and I am so grateful I didn’t diminish my ability to receive it’s flow because I expected it to show up in a certain way according to my own limitations and other’s beliefs. This shift wasn’t my doing, it was love undoing me so it could blow my mind and sweep me off my feet again and again.
Love precedes a church that would tell me who is in and who is out based on their interpretations and authority. It transcends tradition and convention that has ascribed certain requirements to its followers. It is disruptive to the status quo and to those who want to maintain power or control. So it seems, at my core I have not actually changed that significantly, I am just as stubborn as ever to follow Love and be defined by it. My arrow has been pointing in this direction my whole life, my North node is unchanging; I come from love and will return to love, and it will be my guiding force above anything else.
When we are following Love but Love isn’t following the “rules” that have been put upon it, it can feel disorienting and even subversive to keep walking this path. There are many of us who are “changing” because we are questioning or saying no to convention, tradition, and some forms of religion. If you are still reading this maybe you resonate with this and you are wondering if you will lose relationships and community because of your shift. For sure it can feel scary and lonely, and losing relationships is a possibility. However, there are others like us who are forging ahead in the name of love without a church, established community or guide map. Or you may have chosen to stay in a tradition but have a little store room in your heart where truth is kept safe if it isn’t in alignment with the teachings of the group. That’s okay too. We have a way of finding each other. Don’t give up. There are more of us than you know.