The Daily Devotion: The Way Out Is Through

"The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?"
~ Confucius

"The best way out is always through."
~ Robert Frost

We are escape artists. All in the name of survival. The irony of our knack for evasion is that it typically has reverse, adverse effects. 

Something truly exciting happened during meditation last night. I read a short passage that marveled at the notion that meditation was often criticized as an escape from the world. The reading posited that meditation is a escape "into" the world by being more present.

Almost immediately after starting, though, I was struck by how present felt. Specifically, I was floored by a dark feeling that arose in my mind.

I was suddenly present to a struggle I've dealt with since my youth. My conclusion: I had absolutely NO sense of how to finally overcome this challenge. I finally admitted within myself that I no longer had any tools to deal. My mind gave in...but I promise myself that I'd do my best to stay "present".

Then, something else happened: I began to see images in my mind's eye.

Images of......faces. The faces of family and friends and foes and former girlfriends (lord help me) and former girlfriends' mothers (OK, seriously?) and prisoners and students. I could see and feel a deluge of love pouring from the faces of everyone I've ever loved, felt from from, or sensed love in.

A message welled up from within: "The way out is through. The way out is through. The way out is through...their love." I can't describe the immense burst of gratitude, strength and comfort that rose up within my heart when thinking about all of those I have had the privilege to love.