Running Naked to GOD

If you're going through hell, keep going.
(Wisconsin Churchill)

I once purchased an astrology book that integrates the Western signs of the zodiac with the Chinese astrology calendar. When I opened the page with my Leo-Snake constellation, it read, "The Leo-Snake is always right, even when he is wrong." I started laughing and stopped reading. Somehow that simple phrase tells my entire story.

After graduate school I applied to universities to teach but I got a job in the financial industry instead. Had I become a professor, I likely would have come across as quite condescending and arrogant. It is not that I am arrogant per se, but intellectual superiority is a good armor to hide behind if one feels inadequate and naked inside.

Alas, I went to the financial industry instead and got a forecasting job that entails getting gutted at least a couple of times each year. Nothing to hide behind, nothing to pretend, just naked as they come with everyone to see it and point fingers at. I doubt that I would have signed up for this emotional turmoil had I known in advance what would hit me, but given that I one day found myself in that hell hole, the fighter in me just kept going until the day when I could leave this pressure cooker environment with my head held high.

The WAY doesn't look out for the whims of the "I"; the WAY brings us HOME on the fastest route possible. All falsehood, pretense and armor has to be left outside of the Garden of Eden. We are naked there, and we feel good about it too. Spiritual travelers go to therapy 24/7, and life turns out to be the best life coach there is. The medieval monk Meister Eckhart once remarked that we need to run to GOD naked. Yup, life strips off my clothes and I let HER. Amazingly though, in all that nakedness and vulnerability, since traveling the WAY, I feel cozy, warm and protected.