Learning to live without knowing how it all comes out.

Endless choices, endless choices and yet there's one choice.

(Ram Dass)

Let this offering be read slowly,

with East Forest’s

“Can't Fall out of Love”

playing softly in the background:

Endless choices.

Endless ways

to turn towards,

or away from,

what is true.

And yet,

at the heart

of every choice,

there may be

only one.

How may I choose

what has already

chosen me?

I have been returning

to this question.

Not because

I have found the answer,

but because

I am beginning to suspect

that I may have misunderstood

the question.

For much of my life,

I believed choice

was about deciding

what should happen next.

Choosing the direction.

Naming the destination.

Making a plan

and remaining faithful

to it.

I thought I was choosing

the life I would live.

And perhaps I was.

But life

was also choosing me,

as it was also choosing her.

It was life that chose us.

She imagined

how things would unfold.

She believed

she knew who she was,

where she was going,

and who would be there

when she arrived.

Almost none of it

came out

as she imagined.

And yet,

here we are.

Not where

we thought we would be,

but increasingly familiar

with the life

that found us.

Everything we once thought

about who we were

and how it all came out

has very little resemblance

to the way it is.

And, at the same time,

there is a deeper knowing.

A familiarity

within the becoming.

The strange remembrance

of becoming

who we have always been.

And the urge of finding

who reminded us

who we have always been,

together.

The future has allowed us

to see the past more clearly.

Things that once appeared

unconnected,

now reveal

a thread.

Departures

that felt like endings

became beginnings.

Choices we questioned

led us precisely

where we did not know

we needed to go.

And moments

that seemed to take us

away from ourselves

were also part

of the long way home.

We know we have no control.

Everything

will change.

We now know this,

because

we have watched it happen:

Around us.

Within us.

The lives we carefully arrange

refuse to remain arranged.

The people we love

become someone else.

We become someone else.

What once seemed certain

becomes impossible.

What once seemed impossible

quietly becomes our life.

And still,

we continue

making plans.

We choose.

We promise.

And we begin again.

Perhaps the plan

was never meant

to secure the future.

Perhaps it is simply

how we meet life

from where we are now.

A gesture

towards the unknown.

A direction

offered in good faith,

knowing that the road may turn

the moment we begin walking.

We now make plans

knowing full well

that they may become irrelevant

a moment later.

And increasingly,

we are at peace with that.

Our commitment

remains to truth.

Not to conform.

Not to please.

Not to preserve

what no longer feels true

simply because it once did.

Surrender

does not relieve us

of discernment.

It requires more of it.

Because when certainty

falls away,

we must listen

more carefully.

When we let things be,

we do not cease

to care for them.

We stop demanding

that they become

what we need them to be.

We allow them

their own movement,

their own rhythm,

their own becoming.

And we allow ourselves

the same.

Adapting,

adjusting,

remaining present,

seeing the thread.

We dance with things

as they are

because they are

what is here.

They are what we have been given.

They are the only thing we have.

And sometimes,

in being fully present to what is,

we understand

that there was no choice.

Not because

everything was predetermined.

But because,

once I had become quiet enough

to hear what was true,

there was only

one way I could answer

without abandoning myself.

Perhaps this

is the only choice.

Not deciding

between the countless lives

we might imagine,

but recognising

the life that is asking

to be lived through us.

To answer:

yes.

And then something

unexpected happens.

The magic returns.

Not because life

suddenly becomes good or right,

nor because

nothing difficult remains,

but because

we are no longer measuring what is

against everything

we thought it should be.

There is only

what is.

We have no idea

how it will all come out.

And it is fine.

Not always comfortable.

Not always easy.

But fine.

At a choice point,

I find it best

to become quiet.

To empty.

To return to square one.

And, if I can,

I stay there

for a while.

I resist the urge to decide

merely to escape the discomfort

of not knowing what to do.

Because the choice point

is as alive as anywhere else.

Perhaps more so.

There,

between what has been

and what has not yet revealed itself,

I can listen.

Not knowing

is not the absence of an answer.

Sometimes,

it is the silence the answer needs

before it can be heard.

Patience is good.

The tolerance

for not knowing

what is what

is quite an art form.

We ask life

for an immediate reply.

But life

has its own timing.

If we listen,

what needs to become apparent

becomes apparent in time.

I do not always know

whether I am choosing life

or life is choosing through me.

Perhaps there is

no difference.

Perhaps freedom

is not found

in controlling what comes next,

but in being present enough

to recognise what is mine to live,

what is mine to release,

and what is mine to love,

while it is here.

Endless choices.

Endless ways of imagining

how it all might come out.

And beneath them,

quietly waiting,

the only choice:

to be here

for the life

that is here.

May we become at home

with what we cannot know.

May we make our plans

with devotion

and release them

without resentment

when life reveals

another way.

May we never confuse

surrender with abandonment,

nor certainty with truth.

May we remain

at the choice point

long enough to hear

what cannot be heard in haste.

May we recognise

the thread

running through

all we have been,

all we are,

and all we are becoming.

May we trust

that what is truly ours

will not require us

to abandon ourselves.

And when the way

becomes apparent,

may we have the courage

to answer the life

that has already

answered us.

Yo lo Creo.

I believe, and so it is.