Wings of Forgivenness

"I took a swim in the sea of guilt and misery
To find myself in an island in the middle of nowhere
In my solitude I asked to know the highest truth
And what I was told Is to thine own self be true"
-India Arie

Forgiving others begins with forgivenness of self first. I have been on an emotional roller coaster lately, for many different reasons and I have been really trying to work through it all. I've been on a retreat for the past three days and I have had a wonderful chance to reflect on things that have been happening. Being out in the cold and with a group of people that I was not feeling close to was not something that I was looking forward to. I had made up in my mind that the relationships I had were enough and that there was nowhere left for me to go as far as community building.

Funny how lately I've been wrong a lot.

During this retreat something was different. People were feeling the same way I was feeling. I wasn't the only one tired of "playing community". I wasn't the only one that came into this experience searching for something and now almost six months later still feeling like somthing was missing.

That felt good. It felt good to hear that I was not alone in this and that my feelings were actually valid. On the flip side of that though I was amazed at the small number of people that had such apathy. In listening to them speak and hear their feelings vocalized I began to think about apathy. I began to ponder the idea of apathy and what it means.

We took a nature walk. During this walk we were silent and we were supposed to let nature speak to us. This was hard for me. Silence is hard for me because as an extrovert if I can't say something... then it isn't real to me. I was as silent as I could be. As I walked I started hearing in my spirit "Conscious apathy will never evoke beauty". Wow. This was so powerful to me. See here I was in this "community" constantly being the squeaky wheel, constantly being the one to call my group out, constantly asking for what I wanted. And I felt resentment from my group for this, I felt like people just wanted me to shut up. I felt like people wanted me to turn my being intentional into apathy. They wanted this I felt because my apathy would relieve their accountability.

Apathy is not in me. Being the emotional person that I am I feel somthing about EVERYTHING! It's me and it's ok. And I must be true to me. I must be true to me.

At the end of this retreat I felt different. I felt good. Good abut the people, good about the time, good about myself. I fought for what I wanted and it's coming. Slowly but surely we are building something. Whatever it is it's worth fighting for.


Until the next song plays...
-Jazz