Knowing

I do not know how you wake up.  I wonder.  I know I often wake up in my own world.  For reasons I do not fully understand, I come into the world alone.  I am thirsty to sense God's presence.  I crave the awareness and presence of those I love.  In the midst of it all, I find myself needing to know within myself that I am part of a community even as I reconnect my soul to the very thing I crave.  It is an awareness that demands the Spirit's help in my quiet world, ideally in virtual silence. 
In my rebirth each day, I find it very important to see life clearly, succinctly, and without filters.  With my connection to community, I love to bury myself for a bit in blues music if only to know that there are others that see life clearly.  Yet I am getting ahead of myself.  I am skipping the brutal assessment that is a natural part of my daily coming to life.  For me, this is a critical part of what is means to be alive.
I need to know the impact of yesterday's self centric choices.  There is an extreme that I want to ignore but I need to assess.  The old prophet called it like it was and is; “They compete in the race to do evil and run to be the first to murder.  They plan and plot evil, think and breathe evil, and leave a trail of wrecked lives behind them.”  (Isaiah 59.7)  This is the path I am frequently on and I find myself needing to see this in honesty.  Yet it does not stop here.
Whatever we are, it is the reality we find ourselves in.  Knowing this helps but it is not enough.  We also need to see what God sees in and for us.  We are never locked in yesterday.  We always have the present and the freedom within.  Knowing both sides of the equation opens our souls and those around us to the infinite possibility of compassion and love.