Movement, and Acceptance.

"When you encounter a firm resistance anywhere, it usually means that you are on the wrong road, and had better retreat and try another."
                                           Emmett Fox.

I've noticed, as I grow in my spirituality, that I am more open and accepting of the idea that I can feel what is happening in my life as a sense of movement, either free movement, or movement which is stuttering and stumbling and rough. When it feels like it's my Higher Power's will, the pieces will fall into place smoothly and in the most amazing ways. When I meet with firm resistance, I've learned to accept that the way is blocked for a reason, and I can "retreat and try another" road.

When I was new to program and Al-Anon, I would have read or listened to this same thing I've just written, with raised eyebrows, and a firm belief that the author or speaker must have been operating under a delusion. The only will of which I was aware was my own, and I was angry and frustrated by the fact that I never seemed to get my way, no matter how hard I tried. I would put my head down and bulldoze my way through, like a wild animal fighting its way through a thicket of bushes, determined to reach a pre-set goal, completely unaware that the thicket was there precisely to stop my forward process, because on the other side of it was a huge ravine, and my forced and forward momentum, once I made it through, would carry me over the edge, and down for a long, frightening fall.

I've learned to be aware of the movement in my life. When a door opens in front of me, I take a deep breath, ask my Higher Power for strength and courage, and step through. I've learned to do this whether the door is one of apparent grace and beauty, or a rickety-looking strange contraption held together by bent nails and duct tape.

I've been asking my Higher Power for something, and in the last couple of weeks, it has been being given to me, but from a place, and in such a way, that I'm feeling a little hesitant about it. Not because I don't believe in it, it's blindingly obvious and powerful. I'm hesitant because I hadn't expected an answer so incredibly quickly. While asking, it was with the idea that this could come in the future at some point. Instead, it has been handed to me in the last two weeks. Last night I went out walking for two hours, through quiet residential streets lined by huge walnut trees, and then down to the seawall.
I walked along beside the sea, thinking of a couple of nights ago, when I did the same two hour walk but in reverse, when it had dawned upon me that what I had was the immediate reply to my request - "You've been asking for ____, here it is. Enjoy it."  Once the realisation arrived, I had the often delighted understanding I'll get with these gifts, that before that moment, I'd been blind to the true nature of what was happening.

But once I see it, I have to laugh at my obliviousness.

At church today, the closing song ended, as it always does, "I choose love." Glorious.