"...burning with Curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.
In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again."
In January of this year, I said goodbye to a beloved brain child that I had nursed for the past seven years. As I watched my baby business grow over the years, I noticed myself beginning to shrink. I was quick to dismiss the long days and late nights that led to burnout as a requisite of an entrepreneurial lifestyle, and was equally as quick to chalk up the drugs and alcohol that I used to escape my reality as a requisite of being in the food industry.
In the months that followed the decision to close, I wrestled with shame, regret, bitterness, resentment and feelings of deep failure as I told my employees, clients and vendors of the news.
Down, down, down. Would the Fall never come to an end?
'I wonder how many miles I've Fallen by this time?' [Alice] said aloud...
...when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the Fall was over. Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment...
Perhaps this is one of those moments that only exist in fairy tales. The reality is - hitting Bottom hurts.
The Falling feels like that moment where you are half awake, and half asleep. You are aware of your surroundings, but you aren't really aware. You find yourself in a disorienting haze, wondering what is real and what is dream, which way is up and which way is down, where you are, and who you are.
But eventually, you hit something. A sudden jolt that wakes you up. Thump! Thump! A hard stop at the Bottom, and you wonder... how in the world am I to get out of this?
"I say, how do you do it?" asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a practical boy.
"You just think lovely and wonderful thoughts," Peter explained, "and they lift you up in the air." (Peter Pan)
Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless the Fairy Dust has been blown on him. Fortunately… one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them, with the most superb results.
There's a certain Grace that's Hidden at the Bottom; that is - there is nowhere to go but up.
This Grace is Hidden because few people know that it lies there. The ones who have reached the Bottom and are still with us today have seen it. The rest of us - I mean what was True for me while Falling - try to avoid it at all costs, grasping at anything within reach to save us on the way down:
Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves...
She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was labelled 'ORANGE MARMALADE,' but to her great disappointment it was Empty.
The Fairy Dust I used to feel lovely and wonderful helped me levitate for a moment or so, but only lasted so long before I needed another fix to lift me up, and it couldn't stop me from the Falling. I was deeply afraid, and certain that Death would be waiting for me at the Bottom.
And it was.
But so was the Hidden Grace.
In his book Room for Good Things to Run Wild, Josh Nadeau writes of this Grace that he found at his own Bottom:
Wreckage composed of the collision of apathy and alcohol, the thin veneer of kindness often overpowered by an anger that drove me further and further into drink. A vicious cycle, to be sure. And it's hard to articulate what I felt in that moment - the self-hatred for failing, the wishing some car would swerve and do the deed I was too afraid to commit, the realization that I had been dying for God knows how long.
It was the Bottom. A graveyard.
There is no one here; no one living, that is.
And it was here, as Death appeared before me, that I heard something. Something inside me.
An ache.
A longing.
A song...
Some have heard it, that song. It's Hidden, a soft and faint melody. And often we're told that this music is secret, hard to come by, undisclosed. It's easy to confuse the two - hiddenness and secrecy - but they are different...
Hiddenness is about mystery. Mystery in the sense of mystical...Hiding isn't secrecy; it's not even concealing. The music of eternity is Hidden for the sake of revealing. That's one of the mysteries of Hiddenness - unseen so as to be seen; veiled so as to be revealed. Hiddenness is about the Search.
Jesus tells us to Seek, and we will Find; to Knock, and the door will be opened. But I didn't quite know what I was Seeking.
Success and achievement? Empty.
Worldly pleasures? Empty.
My reputation? Empty.
Death? Empty.
When I turned to Scripture, I heard a chime of music ring out at these words from Jesus:
Seek first His Kingdom and His Righteousness.
Righteousness. What does this mean?
My understanding of the definition of Righteousness is 'doing what is Right in God's eyes.' Something that has recently opened my own eyes to a deeper understanding of meaning is not merely considering definitions, but also synonyms, or poecilonyms - considering something similar.
A poecilonym for Righteousness is Guiltless. When you stand before God without Guilt, what are you?
Innocent.
The truth was - and is - I don't always do the Right thing. And try as I might, I've ceded to the fact that I will continue to make mistakes for the rest of my life. To better understand how I was to Find Righteousness in light of this fact, I zoomed in on the second part of that definition - 'in God's eyes.'
If I was to Find Grace, I had to Find myself through God's eyes.
So, how does God see me? That's what I began Searching for.
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