Dealing with onions

Once upon a time there was a girl born in the land of the Midnight Sun, on the longest day of the year. The sun would barely dip beyond the Horizon on the day she was born. She grew up in a loving yet fearful environment (which she later pondered – could that really have been love, since there’s no fear in love?) with a subtle control inhaled with every breath. She learned to adapt. That became one of her strongest suits in life – to fit in, conform, agree, follow suit, make peace. She worked that muscle so strong that she lost her inner voice in the journey. If somebody asked her what she liked, what she wanted, desired or dreamed of, she was lost for words. She had no idea how to find those answers in her heart since she was always focusing outward on pleasing people.

She lived many years feeling unsatisfied – and guilty over the fact that she felt unsatisfied. She wondered what it would look like to be fully alive and thriving while she was fighting the battle of merely surviving, barely keeping her head above water. Her head looked calm and collected floating nicely along in the river of life but under the surface her arms and legs were frantically paddling a frenetic dog swim not to get pulled down by the strong undertow. She went to bed each night exhausted.

In her mind “resting” was a sign of weakness. “Working hard” equaled strength and achievement. But she couldn’t really do either. Her rest was ruined by constant guilt of not being enough, not doing enough, not reaching the standards, but her achievements were also ruined by those same lies. She was caught in the middle, in the land of mere survival, like a lifeless fish, a slimy slug slithering aimlessly, without direction, purpose or geist. Her heart was aching but she kept thinking she didn’t have the right to have an aching heart since nothing was really wrong. Everything seemed perfect or at least perfectly tolerable. No major disasters, tragedies or sorrows worthy of mentioning. So she kept paddling along in life with just a slight hint of sadness tugging on her heartstrings trying to get her attention. She medicated the voice of sadness into a white noise in the background that she could live with. Dulled. Numbed. Normal. Maybe.

When the girl had spent half a century on the planet she decided to be brave and take a look inside her well wrapped heart, like Lazarus who came stumbling out of the grave wrapped in his grave clothes, slowly hobbling, smelling disgusting of decay when the Master called him. An offense to the senses. The Lord told Lazarus’ friends to free him from his grave clothes and unwrap him. There was a lot of unwrapping to do. Actually he was tied up, hands and feet with strips of cloth. He was fully alive. There was nothing short of a miracle but they still had some cleaning up to do. Some straightening out. Some freeing of his hands and feet. So he could walk in freedom. Jesus said to them: unwrap him and let him loose.

Jesus is saying to the girl: be unwrapped and be let loose!!! That’s where she’s at.
The unwrapping stage. It might take a while. Layer after layer. Like an onion. And there will definitely be some tears. That’s what happens when you deal with onions.