Out There in the Beautiful Unknown

Out there in the beautiful unknown, out where life’s mysteries are created and apportioned, out in the wonder of our deeper existence surely lies a welcome for each of us.

I want to be connected to that. I want to be open to all of the gifts that wait for me, and you, and all of us in those sacred places of the extraordinary presence of something inexplicable and good.

For instance, comfort, in the midst of life’s muddle. Across every path we travel today, the blinding traffic of cars, the early morning neighbor rolling out the trash bins, the coworkers at our workplace, the weary homeless man pushing across the intersection a grocery cart of used debris--there and elsewhere--passes someone just entering or leaving a devastating experience. Heartbreak knows no boundaries. The wounding of the soul comes not with some predetermined assignment or punishment for the few; it comes to all of us, deserving or not.

But into the tumult there often appear the mystical open arms of care. It might be nothing more than autumn’s falling leaves that folds you into their color and release. It might be the face of a child with eyes of love looking trustingly, affectionately straight into your eyes and heart. It might be a song you suddenly hear walking into your pain and saying, “Here’s a little healing for all of the hurts.”

Isn’t it amazing how seemingly out of nowhere comfort can arrive?

Insight. That, too, exists out there in the beautiful unknown. What am I learning from life? Or from myself? Or from you? I can never know all the answers. But that should not keep me from asking my questions. Did we just come here to die? Is our earthly journey only about acquiring, about buying and selling, about getting shiny new objects and expensive toys and useless playthings? Is life truly the survival of the fittest? Are the gentle to be ignored and dismissed while the vulgar are recognized and rewarded? Does my urge to be kind mean anything in a world where force rules?

I want to learn about this. I want to know more. I am hungry for awareness and comprehension. I do not want to be afraid of my intuition or of the quick unerring call of the gut where all the deep-seated truth waits to guide me.

Insight is everywhere. Billboards have taught me things. And books. And people. And more. The flight of birds. The play of children. The waning life I observe in the old.

The gift of evolving. Of learning. Of personal change and growth. Of knowing something we had not previously known. Of being more than we previously were. What a remarkable thing this is.

Finally, there is love, waiting for us in the beautiful unknown.

When we are feeling beastly, uncaring, selfish, full of it, enraged, bigoted, violent, and otherwise inhuman, we are feeling unloved. I am convinced as well that the most brutal among us, those whose lives have turned to poison, whose humanity has been twisted into something fiendish and unnatural, whose souls for reasons not always known or understood have leaked out all of their light, are those who feel no love.

Love is a fundamental element of our human makeup. We cannot survive without it in some form or expression. And the truth is, it’s out there for all of us to know and be affirmed by.

And perhaps it is to our shame that those of us as loved and loving people do not share more freely with others this beautiful human endowment.

But if you are feeling unloved today, I reach out to you and wish you love. I want you to feel it—raw and wild, warm and caressing, passionate and uncontrollable, tender and forgiving, fun and pleasurable, deeply and soulfully. Open yourself to its presence near you and grab hold of it and embrace it and let it stun you and crush you and rebuild you and fortify you.

Out there in the beautiful unknown are experiences that welcome us and if we let them will take us into something more complete.

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The Unclad Soul

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