Vachon Imagined

There was a man I used to work with who, every time he spoke to me, it felt like he was sending electricity through my body.

And he was.

It was the proverbial hand reaching inside you and revealing you.

The angry person.

The man.

The woman.

The Democrat.

The Republican.

Yes, even President Trump.

The homosexual.

The transgender person.

It is revealing you.

And before this becomes a person you can touch, feel, upset, defend, condemn, or put down, it was—and remains—life.

To return to that life, you have to let people touch you.

You have to let them reveal you.

This is awakening.

And you can feel it when it happens.

Then your mind arrives with a story.

President Trump is a terrible leader.

President Trump is a wonderful leader.

But before he was either of those things, he was life.

Before he was a boy, before he was what we call human, before he was a president, he was—and remains—life.

This isn’t a testimony about how I voted or whether I’m a Republican. Far from it.

I’m pointing to the image from which all images are created.

This is what your mind does.

You have an image of someone, and then you give that image a story.

The only problem is that this is your story too.

Because there is nothing happening outside of you.

Whatever he represents to you is revealing something in you.

You just haven’t seen it yet.

Your eyes deceive you.

Your mind deceives you.

Even your body can deceive you.

Because you see the person, and then you see what you have decided the person means.

And suddenly the living thing is gone.

Or so you think.

When you live as life, you begin to notice when you start to depart from it.

You can’t actually depart from life.

But you can distort it.

You can move out of its innocence and begin thinking:

I’m the one typing.

I’m the one thinking.

I’m the one making this happen.

And now what was love becomes polluted—not because life itself has become polluted, but because we’ve mistaken ourselves for the author of something that was already moving.

But rest assured:

It isn’t polluted.

Nothing has been ruined.

Nothing has been cast outside of life.

It is simply life returning and being expressed again.

Through President Trump.

Through the person who opposes President Trump.

Through the person you love.

Through the person you cannot stand.

Through the tree.

Through the moon.

Through you.

Through me.

So how do we get past this?

We pray.

I will sometimes hold an image of someone in my mind and let the hatred be there.

I don’t try to make it disappear.

I don’t try to make them good.

They already are.

I simply become humble enough to watch what happens.

And, on its own, it begins to pass.

Because life is passing.

Life is moving.

Life is revealing.

And the person I thought was my enemy becomes the very thing revealing me.

The electricity was never really about him.

It was life touching life.

And that is awakening:

letting yourself be touched long enough to discover what you thought was outside of you was never outside of you at all.

Life is passing through your enemy just as much as it is passing through you.

Just as much as it passes through the tree.

The moon.

The person you love.

The person you fear.

The person you judge.

The person who judges you.

Always the life.

Always.