I recently chose to watch ‘The Post’ – the latest offering from Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. For me, the pivotal moment occurred when Katharine Graham – decked out in her finery to celebrate a friend’s latest adventure – was insistently interrupted by her assistant to attend to an urgent phone call from her editor. Haltingly, she takes her leave and heads to her office to find it occupied by three men, insistent on ‘advising’ her before she had even taken the phone call. In her moment of wisdom, she sent them packing, closed the door and chose to take the lead in her own life.
Fast forward to that pivotal moment: against great odds, Katharine Graham carved out her own path and chose – at significant risk to herself, her family and her business – to publish the controversial documents. Her body shaking, her mind was clear: in this call to her own unwavering inner truth, she chose that truth.
Yes, this was representative of a woman who, at a difficult and challenging moment, rose to her own greatness. A woman who, at a time when women simply did not, chose to take her own advice and press beyond the pressures of the men around her who claimed to know better. All powerful and moving… and not what caught my attention.
At this pivotal moment, I was profoundly moved by the innate grace of the human spirit; the clarity of both knowing and acting in alignment with the truth of who we are when we arrive and who (I believe) we are intended to be, with this reflected back to us through the creations that we bring into existence in our world.
In a nano-second, I was transported back to the first moment that I lay eyes on my newborn sons. Filled with awe and deep reverence at being the conduit for their arrival; and bearing witness to the first moment when our eyes met, deep undulations of recognition and reverence filled my body as I knew – without a doubt – another godforce had arrived. Such perfection at its most open and vulnerable. Such promise and potential, gaining presence and strength with every breath.
Over these past 30-some years engaging with others, in moments of both terror and triumph, I have never lost that sense of the Infinite Grace of our own Being. Such is likely what has kept me going for so many years in the face of endless stories of brutality, humiliation, disrespect, dismissal and far, far worse: the unwavering recognition of that ever-present and noble heartbeat of who we are at the very core of and purpose for our existence. Our ability to be compassionate, caring and accepting. Our inalienable right to know the best in ourselves and each other. Our deepest and unapologetic desire to do the honourable thing… to make the right choice… despite enormous pressures to do otherwise. Our ability to rise to the full measure of our own potential and say ‘no’ when all around us would prefer a resounding ‘yes’ to that which is expedient and appeasing to the collective mind.
In all these many years of engaging with others, I have sought to find within mySelf and every other that place where fear and cowardice are banished and Infinite Grace emerges into the unlikely but overwhelmingly noble place to stand. Sometimes, just daring is its own reward, revealing to us so much more of who we once were upon arrival – and who we can again, choose to be.
I choose to live from that place of believing and trusting the deeper nobility of who we are. Often, evidence and facts to the contrary, I trust that staying in the moment and moving through its attending misery, will take us to where we need to go. I choose to see through godforce eyes, making me both willing and able to see godforce in all with whom the threads of my life intertwine in the design of a new tapestry for ‘reality’.
Something happens inside us – all of us – when we allow ourselves to be moved by the majesty of our own Being. I remember that well, witnessing in those precious, tiny faces – eyes wide open, gazing at this new place – the evidence of what it is to trust that we are here for a purpose. Perhaps in choosing that to be so, the gateway opens for us to remember just what it might be.
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