Friday, April 19, 2013

Beyond


I heard a song the other day with lyrics, "I'm moving beyond emotion, I'm standing on belief."  I've searched for the song to no avail, it was a flash of lightening and then gone.  Yet its jagged imprint, vivid white against the obsidian of a night sky...has lingered.  The words have echoed repeatedly through my thoughts, battling the mists of hurt and fear in my mind.  Webby fingers of surprising strength, these are, threatening to strangle the choice and truth from my heart. 

Emotions are powerful.  Saturated and dense, thick with voices so loud they fill every crack and crevice within us.  Elemental, they can whisper along our skin awakening within us passions glorious; or surging into a tsunami of titanic proportions, slam us to the ground, forcing the air from our lungs.  Emotions can seep from our minds to our hearts, invading our souls if we are not vigilant...and a soul run purely on emotion, enters dangerous territory.

Belief is different.  Chosen.  Built.  Through experience, over time, drenched in our graphic humanity.  A conviction, a confidence in the truth or existence of something not immediately susceptible to rigorous proof, the definition reads.  Foundations that we live and breathe and walk upon.

Our beliefs are the stone of us, standing within the hurricane.

The scent of renewal that accompanies Spring reassures me of the cyclical nature of life.  Dawn and then dusk and dawn again, no matter how dark the night.  Storms and then sunshine, death and birth.  The frigidity of Winter eventually is won over by the warm wiles of Spring.  There is joy and then anger and sorrow and grief.  Quiet solitude.  Discovery....possibilities.....and joy again.  This permeates the lives of my children, my marriage, the battles that rage within me at times.  As well as the world I've watched spilled out across the screen this week, agony and suffering painting  everything in shades of red and black.  So much senseless anguish and death. 

I have felt pain so deep I thought it would cleave me in two.  Have been chased by fears that follow me wretchedly into my dreams, inescapable.  Grief that sought to drown my soul...emotions that were waves threatening to wash away the shore.


But I believe.

In goodness.
In forgiveness and beginnings and strength.
In hope.
In healing.

No matter where you may be, step past the emotions.  Choose your direction. 


Move beyond.


20 comments:

Shea Goff said...

Amen, sister.

Anonymous said...

Staring across a sea of what could have been, the wrong and the right, their damning of me has no affect.

Robbie Grey said...

Sometimes, emotion and belief are so intertwined it becomes difficult to see where one ends and another begins. I once heard it was better to have an idea than belief; the auspice being that an idea can grow, change, and evolve, whereas a belief is set in the cold stone of dogma.

Still, paradoxically, even if you claim to believe in nothing, you have just made a statement of belief...

Geo. said...

Belief in goodness, forgiveness, beginnings, strength, hope, healing. Yes, these repair the future. Enchanté.

Out on the prairie said...

Lovely to hear from you, a good set of prose and almost famous quotes, or perhaps they are.I work with a friend who prefers the red and black, and sees life jubilant.He did an entire wedding in it.

Anonymous said...

I've been needing a nice tall drink of Unexpected! As always, your words are beautiful and moving on a primal level. I doubt anyone could read your blog and NOT respond.

Hold on to that goodness and hope. Some days it's what keeps us from unraveling.OxOx

the best part of my day... said...

This is so beautiful....and reassuring.

Stephanie @ Life, Unexpectedly said...

Thank you for writing this, Chantel. I know what you mean with the pain. But it's so hard to get beyond it. I've been working on it for years, going through the ups and downs. Sometimes I think I have lost my hope in ever getting beyond it. I want to run away once again, but I have run before and the pain has always found me. I am tired of running and starting over just to be torn in the ditch again. I cannot teach the girls that running away is a solution. So I stay and work on it, and despair, wait, and start working through it again...

terlee said...

Some beliefs, however, are so horrifically destructive, they shake the very foundations of goodness and hope. I struggle against the despair...

Anonymous said...

Seems like we spend times when a dizzying array of emotions dominate all thoughts, then times with them almost totally shutdown-submerged. But not enough time in between. I do try to remind myself(with varying degrees of success) that my emotional responses are largely a product of what I'm thinking about what happened, not actually what happened. I often wish I was much less compelled to contemplate.

I wish you much hope & healing, & some downy silence. Gloom fading, good prevailing. ~Mary

Mary Kirkland said...

Our beliefs are made up of what we have experiences, lived, seen and done. They may change with upcoming experiences that we are not expecting.

Dark Thoughts Blog

Nancy/BLissed-Out Grandma said...

A friend's email signature says something like "we are our thoughts." Some days I have to remind myself to steer my thoughts to the strong and positive. You have written a lovely and eloquent reminder.

ND Mitchell said...

I feel this. It's a reminder to keep walking on no matter what our emotions tell us.

Timoteo said...

This is goose bump material. Glad I found you.

Lyndsay Wells said...

I love everything you write Chantal, but this one meant a lot to me.

Brian Miller said...

our beliefs are the stone of us...through the hurricane...so true...the scent of renewal in spring...smiles...i like that much...the seasons remind us of it...change is always right around the corner...

Chantel said...

Sorry, my friends, a frantic week left little time for blogland--I've missed you!

Shea--thank you love.

BamaTrav--unfortunately, the damning usually rocks me a bit.

Robbie--lol, your mind is a fabulous pretzel, did you know? I like the idea about ideas....if that isn't too redundant. :) But I think there are some things that stand the winds of time...foundations.

Geo--exactly, without them--we crumble.

Prairie--wow, sounds interesting.

Jane--isn't that the truth? I love the word unraveling... xo

The best--thank you!

Stephanie--the secret of life, that is: one foot in front of the other. Cold linoleum beneath bare feet, make the coffee, pack the lunches, wash the socks...little arms and sweet kisses. Sunset. Breathe deep and wait for dawn. Here's to living...may the touch of loved ones never pale.

Terlee--I know. But together we stand, yes? I'll hold your hand, if you'll hold mine...

Mary--"...what I'm thinking about what happened, not actually happened." wow. I will carry that with me, I think. Thank you.

Mary K--true, but I hope my foundational beliefs are stronger than this world.

Bliss--thank you, and I love that quote!

David--amen.

Timoteo--me too. :) And thanks!

Lyndsay--I'm so glad, thank you beautiful!

Brian--it's that promise of change that weaves the hope we have, isn't it?

Melissa Maris said...

Shea stole my line. :) I was going to say exactly that - Amen, sister. I want to believe in the goodness as well. And I want to believe it will always win in the end.

Marie Loerzel said...

I want to move beyond. But sometimes I get trapped on the fly paper that is life.

Chantel said...

Mel--I think we must, in order for beauty and laughter to live on.

Marie--oooh, "fly paper" is a brilliant phrase to describe life...and I know exactly what you mean.