Flight

This morning, the sun is shining again. It is about 40 degrees already and the world here is melting. I watched the birds for a while - well, I heard them more than saw them. They were chirping and chattering over a small hill where I couldn't see them, and their little heads popped up once in a while. It sounded like there were many, maybe 50, and one I saw was a robin. It got me thinking about flight.

When we think about flight as a metaphor, at least for me, it's something beautiful. It is freedom and letting go, being inspired and taking wing, taking off to the sky only when blissful and free.
For the birds I just saw, flying was about fear. Something startled them, a larger, more dominant bird of prey, a small hawk I saw settle into a tree. We envy that birds have the ability to take to the air, to leave all the dangers of the earth and soar.

What makes us fly?

What if, like the birds, the thing that makes us fly is fear? What if we only soar when something invades our comfort zone, forcing us to seek immediate safety? Baby birds often only learn to fly when pushed from the nest. Have I pushed myself from the nest? Have I flown in search of safety?

In some ways, I guess I have. But I also wonder if I've flown to a different kind of place - just as frightening - where I am forced to be alone with myself and confront the scariest thing of all - ME.

I pushed myself from the nest. I startled myself into flying. I was frightened by the darkness, the deep downward spiral of self-loathing. When I saw myself react out of fear, I had regret. And those times seemed to become more frequent, so that I was moody, unable to react with clarity. Flying... with no place to land.

A spiritual healer I saw several times in Arizona once told me that we all react out of either fear or love. Sometimes pain causes us to respond in fear. And that often makes us feel more pain, more fear, and inflict that upon others.

She shared the example of walking in the woods with her dog. The dog stepped in a bear trap and his leg was caught. When she rushed to help, he turned on her, growling and snapping. Looking back, she knows her dog loves and trusts her - but he was reacting out of fear and pain.

Where are my bear traps? In the times I've snapped and snarled, what was the fear behind it that kept me from a reaction of love and clarity?

I've learned to see people who are angry, hurtful to others, bitter, and all-around negative as broken people. This realization has helped me to look at people whose actions I don't understand with compassion rather than hatred. For people who have let their brokenness define them, I wonder what broke them? What shattered them into so much confusion that every human interaction they have is dysfunctional? My heart aches for their brokenness - and in that change from disgust to compassion, I move from fear to love.

I think about people in other lands who have been broken by injustice, circumstance, disaster, or systems of power that rely on hurt and fear. And the citizens who suffer, aren't they human like me? I have been broken by suffering and hurt - but I am also surrounded by systems and people to heal me. I wonder at the desperation one must feel to think that a suicide bomb is the answer. How desperate, how deep the hurt, how profound the fear, to think that is the only way.

I guess it's human nature to seek revenge when one is wronged. And sometimes, like the dog caught in the the bear trap, we lash out and hurt those we love the most, because the fear and pain are so immediate.

I have hope for this world and my life - but it is because I live in a place where systems exist to heal, and I am blessed by people in my life and heart who love unconditionally.

In observing healthy relationships, I've learned that each must be whole as individuals before being whole as a couple, a family, a community. And we can't force others to be whole, but must work on our own wholeness and provide opportunities for others to find theirs.

This is not to say any of us are ever really whole. But how can we expect to have healthy relationships without being healthy individuals?

It is in the times of fear and flight that we come alive, and times of darkness are sometimes the push we need to renew our spirits. What frightens us, what breaks us, are sometimes what we need to learn who we really are.

Like birds, sometimes fear makes us take flight - and our fear is increased as our wings get tired and we don't see a safe place to land.

The blessing for me? Everywhere I look, I see branches.

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