Monday, July 1, 2013

Intuition/Curiosity/Courage

God is...

I recently read Gavin De Becker’s book The Gift of Fear and was struck by his brilliant descriptions of intuition.  He wrote:  Intuition connects us to the natural world and to our nature.  And.  Nature’s greatest accomplishment, the human brain, is never more efficient or invested than when its host is at risk.  Then intuition is catapulted to another level entirely, a height at which it can accurately be called graceful, even miraculous.  Intuition is the journey from A to Z without stopping at any other letter along the way…  And …Curiosity is, after all, the way we answer when intuition whispers, ‘There’s something there.’  De Becker also states real fear is not paralyzing but rather energizing and refers to it as coiled up energy.  Perhaps courage is another word for that energy. 

I know it all because it is what I lived to tell the tale about in my memoir, God Never Hurries.  It was as if the voice of God was speaking to me through the natural world.  The sun’s message to “Be not afraid”; a glimpse of heaven through grandmother moon; the bright blue sky and the clarity it brought; the deer that sparked my curiosity and later enlightened me; the fox that signaled caution; the raccoon that showed me evil often masquerades as good; and wilderness waters that relieved me of imposed guilt, were just some of the ways nature informed, comforted and emboldened me.  Periodically I still marvel at how I managed to hold my ground and not give into my father’s demands regarding his care.  All of the above, and more, was a long, difficult, but ultimately rewarding lesson in learning to trust in the slow work of God.  What if we all got in touch with our intuition, curiosity and courage?

Two Leo Tolstoy quotes sum it up:

“One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man [read men, women and children] and Nature shall not be broken.”

And

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

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