Building something which is going to need to carry weight, provide support, stand against negative external forces and keep its integrity over a long period of time needs a strong foundation. Not all foundations look the same. Trying to lay a slab foundation under a house which is cantilevered over a cliff is just pouring concrete down a slope. Sinking rigid poles and supports down to bedrock is great unless you’re in an earth quake zone where what you need is a lot of spikes that can sift through shifting soil as it moves. In each situation a foundation is both the support for what builds upon it and in relationship with the world around it. It’s essence is in doing both simultaneously thereby becoming the link between them.
People need a foundation as well. We need a base inside ourselves which supports all the things we work to build in life. We constantly building community, family, careers, jobs, a life that we can enjoy or at least get along with. What we rarely build is our own foundation. We rarely if ever think about building ourselves. In fact we’re often very good at tearing ourselves down. It’s as if we think we have to pledge allegiance to our goals and it would be traitorous to stop working on them for one moment and simply enjoy what we’ve already accomplished. As if stopping would derail everything and we’d never get going again. As if accepting that this is where we are today and it’s not only great but amazing would cause an uprising that would destroy the world as we know it!
Building a foundation within ourselves allows us to have something strong, open and available for us to build on while at the same time being firmly grounded in the world around us so we can not only be responsive but connected. This means creating a relationship with ourselves that includes acceptance. Not accepting that we’re broken and can’t control things and this is as good as it gets…I mean feel free, but what I pointing to is accepting the truth of who each of us is. An amazing creation we’ve forged out of circumstance and experience and our unique spark of divinity. We may not be what we dreamed of becoming in some past sometime, we may not be where or who or how we want to be now, we may long for some future where things are different, but accepting who we actually ARE…truly accepting it not putting up with it or trying to put a good face on the disappointment or just coping with the mess is how we build that foundation. It’s how we stop the tearing down which destroys everything we’ve built and leaves us at zero day after day.
If we are to experience grace in this life, then we need to start by granting it to ourselves.
