deconstruction

"Moses led his people in circles for forty years so they could get ready for the Promised Land, because they had too many ideas and preconceptions about what a Promised Land should like." - Anne Lamott, "Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith"

I realize that growing up, if allowed to happen, is a journey of deconstruction. Dreams and ideals are built in the tender soil of youth... the most accurate intuition of our whole life... which we spend our adulthood trying to get back to. The pure joy of youth signals our innermost matter: WHO we were meant to be from day one. The traces are there, all the way back, in the simplest, most surprising places.

But to return to that pure essence - the joy of what we were created to do, without need for approval or acclaim, simply out of love for it... as it is WHO we are - takes a lifetime of deconstruction. Periods of wandering the wilderness (40 years if necessary), to dismantle all our preconceptions about what that promised land was going to look like.

Once we finally let go of this most agonizing struggle of all - the ideal of what we heard and thought it was going to be - can we see what the Promised Land actually IS.

And it overwhelms us with vast open spaces and wild beauty. We need only come... and run free.
Currently listening : 20th Century Masters - The Best of The Ink Spots