The Perils of Blindness

One of the things people often ask me is: how did I go from being a farmer to being a spiritual leader.

It all sounds so high-falutin. And even mentioning it makes me somewhat uncomfortable. And yet the question is asked of me again and again.

The reason I think people are so curious is that it’s not about me, it’s about them. They don’t really want to know how I became a spiritual leader (or maybe they do). But my guess is what they really want to know is how did I manage to see my way to getting from there to here. What is that magic path, and where are the signposts?

That really is the trick of life. And while my pathway has been as bumpy and unpredictable as so many others, I can tell you that the one thing I learned along the way was to keep my eye on the prize.

Life is full of distractions. Every day there’s a drama that can come up and take away the ability to see possibility. We get bogged down in the details – and before you know it we’re worrying about how to manage our bank account, independently of any sense of what its purpose is.

I call this the peril of blindness. Our internal dialogue gets in the way of our ability to see the opportunities as they present themselves. Before you know it, we’re physically bent over with the weight of what’s in front of us, instead of standing tall and in alignment from the power that is within us.

And here’s where the blindness is really pernicious.

There’s an old story about a man who asks God to rescue him from the flood. As the waters rise, a man in a truck goes by and offers him a seat and room to load up a few of his possessions. The man says: “No. God will provide.”

The waters continue to rise. He wants to be down on his knees now to pray, but can’t so he is standing on a ladder outside his house when a woman in a rowboat goes by and suggests he leave everything behind and jump in. The man says: “No. God will provide.”

Now the rain is seriously heavy. He’s up on the roof, and a helicopter comes by. Same offer, same response.

It’s over now, and the man is face to face with God and asks: “What happened?”

And God of course replies that everything was sent his way – he simply didn’t see it.

When we are blind we refuse to see the Energy that is flowing towards us. Our focus on the details independent of their purpose, keeps us so filled with fear that we start to feel we are drowning, when our real job – especially in our most challenging times – is to keep our inner floodgates open.

So how did I go from being a farmer to a spiritual leader? I learned to listen to my heart, and trust that what it said was true. And as long as I followed that, the path presented itself to me. In a profound way, I did nothing. It has all be laid out before me. And so it is for you.

Open your floodgates and trust.  We all take in water every now and again, and sputter with the surprise of it. That deep breath in makes all the difference in the world.