The Crooked Path Home

Back in the day when I thought that I was God’s gift to the world, the idea of living a spiritually-based life was unthinkable.  I saw it as being just about the most pathetic excuse for a life on the planet.  Where’s the excitement?  Where’s the glamor?  Where’s the fun?  Who would even consider living such a life, besides a priest, or a nun perhaps?  And even then—why?  Nope.  Not for me.   B-o-r-i-n-g.

Then smack dab in the height of my ego trip, I began to notice ever so slowly, in dribbles and drabs, in little bits and pieces, that stuff began to happen.  Stuff that caught me by surprise, that shook up my foundations, that rattled my cage, exploded my highfalutin concept of myself, and sent me off into a dark night of the soul.  Humpty fell off the wall and smashed to smithereens.  Ouch.

My search for an escape from the darkness led me down countless avenues of exploration to find a way out.  It was a long and arduous journey, but of one thing I was absolutely certain: I had no choice.  I had to find a way out.  I suppose that a trip to the depths of despair might happen to everyone at one point or another, either in this lifetime, the last, or the next.  This one was mine.  My trip down into the pits provided the incentive that I needed to give myself a good, swift kick in the butt and make a commitment to find my way out.  Not until I was fully ensconced in the dark did the search for light begin.

Fast forward to now—and wow—what a difference a dark night of the soul makes!  I’m a whole new me, a makeover of my former self waving goodbye to the last vestiges of an ego trip that ran me on a merry chase in search of all that I thought was good, cool, fun, worth living for, protecting, and guarding with my very life.

Decades later, Humpty is reassembled and sitting happily back up on the wall.  True, it took a while, but the wait was worth it because as each tiny little piece of me was glued back in its proper place, an inner joy filled in the cracks and all that is left is the beautiful, smooth surface of a healed soul at peace with itself and with the world.

Goodbye ego, goodbye glamor, goodbye excitement, and fun.  Hello peace, contentment, hello joy beyond measure.  Having lived in one place and another, and if given a choice for the rest of eternity, I’ll choose another every time.  The glamor of the ego cannot begin to compete with the indescribable ecstasy of striving to live life as a Soul.

The journey toward the Soul is the adventure of a lifetime.  It is a rocky ride made smooth by mighty and powerful forces that help us along the way.  I would not trade one inch of my life’s path, because no matter how crooked the road I chose, it was always made straight.  There are no wrong decisions, because each choice leads us that much closer to what is right.  Every fork offers an option and every option is an opportunity to learn, grow, and experience the benefits and consequences of our choices.  There no wrong turns, there are no mistakes; we are gifted with an abundance of time, opportunity, and do-overs to get it right.  We live in a universe populated by loving, Wise Ones who hold our hands as we travel our path, and guide us through treacherous shoals home to the safety of our souls.  I cannot imagine wanting anything more than that.

Note:  The photo above is courtesy of New Waves of Light, a website designed by anonymous individuals around the world who share the intention of bringing light and love to a world of darkness and chaos. (newwavesoflight.org or NWOL.us).