A word from the unknown

Life coming out of the unknown, streaming out of the future like a river or a breeze that’s blowing on your face from far away.

When I don’t know it feels like a field that has a path in it, but I don’t know where the path is. There is one that I will take but I won’t know where it is until I find my feet walking on it. Facing the many possible paths without even knowing what they are is facing the mystery. I feel a presence there, an immanence, feel like Ferron sings: “I’m nobody’s saviour and nobody’s mine either, yet I hear the desert wind whisper, neither are we alone.” Yes, Ferron! And to do it in a song like you do adds to the mystery! Where’d you get that song but from the unknown?

Ever sitting here on the edge of the unknown, filled with feelings of a million ways to be. Dread, exhilaration, curiosity, gratefulness. Feeling myself as the one on the brink. Would it sound familiar to you that I sometimes experience this as a burden that condemns me to a solitary confinement as I walk around in the world of men? That I sometimes experience it as a humorous inevitability that I can barely contain? That I’m filled with love for my fellow man knowing that I share this delicious experience with that? That I know others occupy this space too, each in their own way? How could they not!

Am I good with the unknown or do I secretly want to figure it out, to know it so I can be safe with it? Could I make a deal with the unknown, a deal with God? My deal with God. I think I can trust “Him” to be a trustworthy contractee. Not one to try and pull a fast one on his creation.

So here’s what I want. (It’s tricky trying to negotiate with the almighty since “He” doesn’t appear as a separate form. There’s no one to sign, for example.)

I would like, says I, to give up the negotiating about the unknown and just live in the unknown. I’d like to not have to renegotiate daily as if the last decision wasn’t good enough. I’d like to do it just once and for all.

Well sure, why don’t you just go ahead and do that then. Sounds good. No problem.

[Easy for You to say, think I. You with your everlasting and your universe’s springing into being. Your big bang, or Great Radiance as some are calling it these days.]

I immediately recognize that there’s no Grand Statement like that to be made that doesn’t just scream to be slapped down immediately. By me if no one else. I’ll have to approach the unknown by accident, just kind of sneak up on it casual like, as if I didn’t even know it was there. Offer gentle reminders maybe when I stray. Give gentle indulgence when I slip such as a mother gives her child and maybe a few of a father’s stern but equally loving slaps.

Or maybe just let the unknown do it!