while driving on the highway awhile back, two pure white doves flew across my path, against the wind and right over the chaotic cars racing down below. these gorgeous beings seemed to fly right by my windshield almost in slow motion, not too far above the traffic level. it caught me by surprise.
such a beautiful analogy that i still reflect upon often, including this morning some months later. i remember experiencing total and complete peace. calm and assurance in the midst of crazy.
the doves most likely wanted to cross the highway to get to the hills where they belonged, land full of trees and shade, however there was no way for them to get there unless they crossed over! no other way around! at some point, to get where they really wanted to be they would have to take the brave flight and fly directly into the eye of the storm to get to where they knew they belonged.
what a picture i have been given by god! thinking about those moments right before those birds made their brave takeoff, what thoughts were abounding in their small feathery brains? if they have thoughts, i’m sure it would be asking questions as to would they be successful in their mission? would they be hit by cars? would they be wounded by running into unforeseen objects?
however…they went! they might have been scared but they went!
they were among the brave ones, they said a giant yes and leapt toward what they knew they needed to do in order to get where they were destined to live fuller lives.
powerful.
i’ve already said yes. i’ve already leapt from the cliff, to some degree at least. so often i think of cliff jumping as all in or all out, which in reality this is most definitely the case. however i am learning that there seem to be different levels of the process. i jump and fall, rise for a bit, fall deeper still and rise to heights higher than before.
then i get a peek at what soaring feels like, only to be knocked almost all the way back to the earth, so close that my eyes are covered with dirt and i choke on the dust filling my weary lungs. then i rise again, with renewed vigor and stamina.
and so goes this cycle.
based on what i observe around me, only a select few ever even jump! the dove people! we seem to falter and finally muster enough courage to let go, only to begin the journey of tumbling and bouncing off of the jagged side of the cliff, and then the rising.
imagine though if we never jumped!
i once heard the idea of ‘arriving at death safely.’
because the fact is that we all die. whether we die safely and wildly with risk, we all arrive at the same fate.
safe living sounds so comforting and lovely to me. however i am not journeying along that path anymore. sometimes by choice and others not so much. sometimes we are just freaking thrown from cliffs we’d rather not be thrown from.
but what we have, above all else, is the promise of is the learning to soar!
image: augenweide.deviantart.com/art/reincrntn-441476755