The Misperception of Disconnection

For Cecile and all my women friends, always on-call for each other.
If we’re snarled in life, tied in knots in our thinking, it can
help to talk, to hear ourselves say out loud what we’re thinking
…and answer a friend’s knot-picking questions.

I’m on the phone…

I’m saying what’s going on:
I feel lost,
disconnected from the Holy,
out of touch with the deep center of my life,
stuck with old messages in my head about
who I am and what I should be doing
and…

Suddenly, the phone goes dead…

?I cock my head in question,
place the handset in the base,
go to the next room,
pick up a different handset.
Words pop up on the screen:
You are too far from base. Move closer.
?But I’m standing right beside it.

Something is tapping on the window
of my awareness…

Impatient, I put the handset
back in the base,
then pick it up again.
I dial my friend.
The call goes through.
But I get her recorded message.
I dial. I get her recorded message.
I dial. I get her recorded message.
I dial. I get her recorded message.

Something is happening here
in addition to what is happening here.

Maybe she is trying to reach me.
So I need to stop trying to reach her.
I need to wait.
I wait.
Then dial again.

Intuitive carom…

Oh!
By the time my friend picks up,
we’re both getting it!
We’re laughing out loud.
A divine comedy
just played out,
and I’m slipping free
from my knots and tangles.

The divine comedy’s subtext,
in invisible ink:

I am not disconnected (from the Holy.)
The Base is right beside me.

If I try to connect
where
I am already connected,
the current-moment closes down.
All I’m left with in my head are
the tired old messages of dogma,
habit, judgments, and ego-blather.

So be still.
Wait.

Hold-open for connection.
In the connection, find communion.
Offer the sacrament:
Write.

Ann Keiffer
May, 2015

Image: fineartamerica.com
Original: Michelangelo/The Creation of Adam/Sistine Chapel

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About Ann

I am interested in the strange beauty of brokenness, in transforming possibility in difficult times, in how we heal even when we can’t get better, in the alchemy of surrender, in the interplay of light and shadow, in the bounty of everyday wonders, in the gift of laughter…and writing about it, all and everything.

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