Sometimes we end up off the map. Life was going along at a predictable, comfortable pace, or toward a place we could see, and then it isn’t. We’re left scrambling, confused, things are different. We don’t know how we got where we are and maybe we don’t know what to do or where to go from here.
This was part of conversation from a couple days ago. Being off the map is not a bad thing, it’s just different, and unexpected. It’s new territory. In many cases, it can be necessary. Because when we depend too much on maps and plans and where we are going, we lose the ability to see what is in front of us. We think we know what’s coming, so we don’t focus on what’s here. Being off the map can mean the freedom to be present.
Meister Eckhart is a Christian mystic I come back to again and again. He sees the beauty of beginnings, “And suddenly you know: it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of beginnings.” Add to that his, “be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” He echoes Christ telling us that unless we are willing to give up our old lives and be born again of water and the spirit, we are missing out. Both are pushing us off the map of what we thought life was going to be and into the possibility, the unknown of what life could be.
It’s more than a little unnerving to let go of what we (think we) know. And it’s a process, getting to a place to embrace beginnings, to let go. Sometimes one we didn’t ask to be a part of. But it’s also a process that starts before we realize it:
In the out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
That’s John O’Donohue, walking us into new territory in “For a New Beginning.” I get where he is coming from. I’ve used the term “restless leg syndrome for the soul,” where you have this feeling where you can’t settle, but can’t fully identify or articulate. But you know something is up. Let me turn it back over to O’Donohue:
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Maybe when we focus on the map, we lose ourselves. Maybe the map we thought we were looking at, no longer describes where we are or where we want to go. Maybe it limits us, and it is in looking up, looking around us, and seeing in a new way, that we open ourselves up to possibility.
