Here is something from way back when. I had built my website one essay at a time and that is still how I write. The essay form gives me cues as to when it is “time to stop.” I will be sharing more things like this when I feel the need to take a broader look at what my writing has always been about. Enjoy!

Dear Vicki,

“I have just come across your website and been so very moved.   Yours is an insight borne of experience and wisdom.

‘It  took me a long time to get to this place.  I studied truth for years and years and then one day I had effortless access—sort of like an ATM machine with no limits.  I have had no enlightenment experience; rather, one crisis after another over a period of many years.’

This quote really struck home and in it I recognized a true voice or rather a voice speaking truth. It is the voice of no escape; that is your wisdom.  It is a note I recognize deep within myself.  You describe an enlightenment that has no consistent voice in our world.  It is an enlightenment not about bliss and light but instead one that highlights the bitter truth of our existence, the truth that at such a basic level we spend our time avoiding.  It is a tough message.

Again, thank you for this.”


D.

My reply:

Dear D.,

It is good to know that the words are working.  I get the image of someone trying to get strings and strings of Christmas lights to work.  It’s the same old cardboard box filled with tangled heaps of cheap green wire and multicolored bulbs. They know that there will be a lot of time before all the wires are untangled and the missing bulbs replaced.  Then they have to be draped around the artificial tree.  Who wants such a job?

Nevertheless, when the job has finally been done and all the strings of lights have been connected together, the cheap little bulbs are now producing their annual display.  You no longer see the individual bulbs, only the light coming from the tree.

It’s our job to keep dragging out the darned box and doing the scut work of trying to untangle the mess.  Frankly, it’s a pain in the you-know-what.That’s why most people would rather hire a decorator to come in and just “do” Christmas.  Christ probably felt the same way.

Vicki Woodyard

*Just as I no longer put up a Christmas tree, I no longer put up a conceptual ideal that one day I will be free and the struggling can stop. It will stop when it stops, as all of you know. Five minutes from now I will have moved back into my everyday life, trying to complete the task of “being Vicki” and all the anxiety that that entails.