The Fighter

If This Is Grace….

Life slammed me into the wall of suffering on a daily basis. I was the Cauliflower McPug of Suffering. I lost every fight. TKO was my middle name. Flocks of birds were flying over my head everywhere I went. Not only that, they went “splat” all over my nicest clothes.

I got up in the morning only to be sent spinning into the wall before I knew what hit me. I was up for the challenge. “I will not give up. I will not give up.” That was my subconscious mantra. My Manager, and I capitalize that, thought I had something. That if I just kept going, I would become a real winner.

And so the months and years went on. I did nothing but do what the Manager told me. I was a female fighter, which is not that common. I begin to suffer fainting spells and my ears rang so loudly they sounded like a heavenly choir. I saw stars that were so beautiful. I begin to hate to struggle up off the mat.

The Manager kept arranging fights that took me up against the toughest fighters there were. At one point my eyes were so tightly shut I had to use a white cane to cross the street. He never let me quit. I begin to hate Him. I had long since quit trying to persuade Him to let me retire. He had not lost faith in me.

Then one night I had a dream. I dreamt that the Manager said, “It’s time for you to quit.” It felt so good. Maybe I would have time to heal, to be out to pasture and able to smell the cow patties. Let’s face it. I obviously couldn’t smell; fighting had ruined my nose.

In the dream, the Manager was holding an iMac keyboard. “This is how you are going to fight from now on,” He said. I have decided that people like you are not who I need in the ring. You never became a winner but you kept on fighting. I have been watching you develop stamina. If you have nothing else, ya got that in spades.” I could have sworn I saw a tear in His Eye.

“So what’s up with the keyboard. Do I have to fight it?”

“No, all you have to do is work out on it every day. It’s your sparring partner. The more you work out, the stronger you will get. And you, My Precious One….I still have great hopes for you.”

When I woke up, I felt that something had changed. I could fight where I wanted to fight. I could fight in my own way. The Good Fight. The fight that counted. Not only that, I would be making TKO’s against what had kept me on the mat for my whole life. Oh, the Manager knew me. He knew my stubbornness, my will to succeed, my intrinsic desire to please. He just wanted me to realize that it could be used for Him instead of for myself.

The first thing I did was write this essay. I punched the keys with my fingers wrapped in tape. I played the music from Rocky in the background. I ran up and down the steps of the QWERTY keyboard. I did an air fist pump and the crowd roared. They wanted me to win. I typed on and on and on. The Manager had pulled it off. I shoulda trusted Him all along. He had made me a WRITER.

Vicki Woodyard
(This appeared in the Nonduality Highlights somewhere in 2013)