I Have Never Been "Alone"

I have never been alone. I remember the very day and moment I awakened in this body. There are memories of being a baby, crawling on the oak floors of the house in which I was born. And there are memories of being two and three and four, but it was not until I was five that I "wakened".

I was up a tree in my Sunday clothes. I knew I was going to get a blistering because I had broken the buckle on my patent leather shoes and torn my dress. It was May and I was hot. My long hair was the color of corn silk in the sun and, at that moment, I hated the way it caught the light because I was trying to be invisible among the branches and leaves of the oak tree I had climbed. The Little Voice that had always warned me of danger had been strangely imposing that day. It had told me to climb the tree. Told me not to hide in the shrubbery this time because the old man would find me there. It warned me as I looked at my slick soled shoes that climbing would be dangerous, that I must take care. It showed me every nook into which I should place my hands and feet on the climb so that I would not slip. And now it was warning me not to move as I watched the old man come 'round the corner of the house and look into the shrubs. I hated the way my hair was sticking in the sweaty creases of my neck and under my arms, and I wanted to move and pull it back. But the Little Voice warned me of the light playing off my hair and that I had not yet climbed high enough: The old man would not see me if I moved.

I was so frightened. I think that must have been the very moment God had chosen to drive fear from my heart entirely. In that moment I decided I could stand any emotion except fear. The Little Voice had gone to such trouble to tell me what to do to keep me safe from the old man, my "granduncle Alfred", and there I was on the brink of spoiling all of it by wetting myself at the sheer horror of what might happen were he to look up and see me.

If I wet myself it will fall down on him and then --

Hush... I will not let him find you. Be still now and wait...

I'm gonna be in so much trouble because I'm hiding and I broke my very best shoes and tore my dress and Daddy is gonna be so mad at me --

That's alright... None of that can really hurt you. Be still...

Alfred did not find me that day. After he left the Little Voice changed. It became a feeling of loving presence that swallowed my awareness, lifting me out of my anger and fear and blessing me with a peace so deep and sacred that I knew nothing could ever defile or even touch that crystalline palace hidden within my being. While my body scintillated with ecstatic chills and my skin rose in gooseflesh, I wept at the unspeakable beauty of the feeling, its depth and clarity and the invulnerable strength of its tenderness. In that moment, I awakened -- knowing I would never, ever, be alone. I was accompanied. Look at the picture in my profile of me at five and you'll see in that child's eyes the presence of one much older than her years.

Little Voice has never left me. In fact my life has been one long revelatory experience designed, it seems, to teach me to hear Him and to follow Him. He has taught me many things but above all other lessons He has taught me two: He has taught me the complete invulnerability of Love that is given for the sake of loving itself -- without need of anything in return. And He has taught me that living in tribute to love by choosing to "do the right thing regardless of the consequences" is the only real escape.

If there were one thing I could tell you that you would "get" it is that we all have our own Little Voice and learning to hear it and follow it are the most crucial things you can do with this life.

I have never been alone. Neither have you.

I love you all.