Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Re-Awakening ...


dorminhoco
Originally uploaded by @mands

"When we realize that we are fully capable of re-awakening from our habitual spiritual sleep, over and over again, then even failure, even blindness, is no impediment to being with God."
~ Jason Shulman

I have read and re-read this passage over the past few days. It has been working through me and in a particular set of interactions, sparked by my Friday night AA meeting and the first spiritual alarm clock that went off when I understood how my absences and not showing up are part of my 4th Step and even 7th Step defects of character.

Sunday night, I receive a total "surprise" email from a young man -- the son of a lesbian couple who I attempted to make amends to last summer and then they canceled. Many times I thought about picking up the phone or just dropping by and then avoiding the notion of having a potential awkward interaction. He wrote to me to tell me how much he missed me. And that he has grown 7 inches since we last saw one another a couple years ago. He included 3 youtube videos of his saxophone solos at his middle school and he captured his passion for playing jazz so eloquently that I would swear I was receiving a letter from an adult. Upon getting this email, I woke up again. God's handiwork in action. Whenever I have had a willingness, the situation presents itself.

I wrote him back immediately. I told him how moved I was by his email and how proud I was to see him playing his saxophone so beautifully. I apologized for my absence in his life as of late and that I also had to work through some things with the adults in his life.

Fast-forward to Monday night. Another unexpected email arrives and this one is from the partner of the mother whose son who wrote me. She shares that the young man's reaching out to me was the impetus for her to be forthcoming about the cancellation last summer and the distance before that. She shared how she was aware that she pushed me away from her partner and the kids. How my abruptly ending the relationship with my former partner jolted her world. It appeared that we had such a "perfect relationship" and then there was the incongruence of the break-up, the substance abuse, and she simply didn't trust me. She now understood that it was her own fears that this could happen in her own relationship and they got projected onto me. My jaw dropped in reading her honest disclosure. And understanding that it was not all me. Another awakening, another door open.

I write her back immediately. I tell her that I understand how difficult it must have been to see the appearance of what she thought to be true about my former relationship and then to discover that it was all a lie. I acknowledged my part in keeping up that facade and how in my healing work I now understood why that occurred and how each of us could not bear to be in the reality of the relationship.

I received an immediate, heartfelt response from her and then a phone call with an invitation to come back into their lives. She wants to surprise her partner first by having me just "show up" this weekend. And then, a gathering with the kids. We both experienced tears of great joy in the prospect of re-connection as well as how much we've missed one another.

We can indeed re-awaken over and over and over again. God is always waiting when we come out from under the covers.

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