Growth means change and change involves risk–stepping from all that is known and familiar, to the vast expanse of the unknown. I find it unnerving to think about this. The realm of “what we know we know” and “what we know we don’t know” is tiny compared to enormity of the rest of it– “what we don’t know we don’t know.” Just think about that.

We prefer the familiar and the habitual–what is known–because the new always demands the death of the familiar, which is where the ego hides so well.

I continue to try to make that leap, and realize most of it from now on will be unfamiliar territory, and that I will never be able to go back to the way things were. It can be a really scary place at times! But somehow I need to learn to be comfortable and at peace in the unknown–in the not knowing, and in not having the answers.

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength. Loving someone deeply gives you courage.

I am fascinated with the concept that we are all connected. It strikes a deep chord in me, and I know it is so. But I really struggle with it in practical, day to day life. When I become irritated with the things people do and how they behave. How inconsiderate they can be. And even though I know the concept to be true, I am frustrated with myself for being intolerant, judgmental, and small at times. So how to live consistently, and with a “connected” mindset is the ongoing challenge.

Here’s an idea and mental image that helps me. Picture the ocean–a huge body of flowing water that seemingly goes on forever. And every living thing, and all spirits are a drop in that ocean. I think it was George Harrison who said this: “Everyone has within them the same qualities as god, just as one single drop of the ocean has within it the same qualities as the entire ocean.”

Niels Bohr, the Danish physicist who was a major contributor to quantum physics and nuclear fission,  said the universe is “not only stranger than we think, but stranger than we can  think.” Our supposed logic has to break down before we can comprehend the nature of the universe and the bare beginnings of the nature of our own God–who is not only stranger than we think, but stranger than the logical mind can think.

–Richard Rohr