Something Is Happening

And I Need To Know What It Is...or, Do I?

Something is happening.

At face value, of course (it always is).  But, at another level, we sometimes have a sense that there are too many things that we are aware of which signal that things aren't (can't) going to stay the same.

Sometimes our fears engage this awareness.  Sometimes, though, there are just too many signs that something is moving, even if we can't fully identify it.

I'm still thinking about my reflection earlier this week; about what agency looks like and, especially, what it needs to look like...for me.

Part of what makes this apparent to me is the degree of pondering (to borrow some terminology from our Christmas season) going on in my heart.  It could be the mood of meaning that is often created by this season. It could be time-of-year reflection, as one year recedes and another emerges.  It also could very easily be a part of how aging works on us, on our psyche.

More pragmatically, it could simply be that our life-cycle dynamics and demands are changing — i.e., I'm getting older.  In this context, I also feel aware of my increasing need to be more proactive in taking care of my mental health.  I can handle some things better than I used to and there are some things that I can't handle like I used to.

This last year has been, to put it mildly, a LOT of things.  One of which is...rough (you can follow a thread back through it starting here).  Like many others these days, I am exhausted.  And, I am facing some big, imminent decisions career-wise.  I wake up earlier and earlier each day, my mind in a whirl...trying to navigate a path towards something I can't fully see.

In many ways, these realities are common to human existence.  So, it is not unlikely that the precipice this can feel like is just another of the realities that enable us consider what our ultimate sense of self and existence is really founded on.

All true — but, nonetheless, something more to walk through than simply to think about.

As I grope for an answer, it is increasingly clear that IT is not what I really need.  That there is something about the question(s) that is even more important.  That the desire for a singular path can easily be tempting, if not misleading — by-passing many more significant things the moment is offering to me.

I can so easily tend to think it is about my circumstances — how those have been arranged, how those have to change.  At one level, it obviously is.  At another level, it is much more profound.  

So what is really happening?

Now I'm going to go a little Christmasy on you — could there be a more profound question (...I have thought of one other, by the way)?  Is this not a question that many (everyone?) have faced before, in other times and places?  Is this not what Mary, the mother of Jesus, was facing as she pondered the circumstances of her life against the context of where she lived in time?

Either way, something IS happening…what if there is actually enough comfort in that reality?