The young writer Keats captured a flavor of our present when he wrote: “Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they have proved upon our pulses; we read fine things but never feel them to the fullest until we have gone the same steps as the author.” These words reflect the hunger of our own hearts; not the hunger for an explained meaning, but the hunger for actual experience. We want things proved upon our pulses. In everyone there is the desire for greatness however subjectively explained, but very few seem to do what is necessary to experience a life where the pulse of beauty, love, and depth of meaning resonates deeply within. Everyday, our history fades a little bit more, and we become once again active in trying to make our hopes come true. The ringing sounds of our life can linger, but an essential melody may never come.

What are the needs for us to realize an expanding experience where we realize more of who we are? What are the essentials of moving beyond self-centeredness, or mere transactional relationships where usery is the norm? How do we build days that accentuate an ubiquitous beauty that is only seen by those who foster an inner aperture that stays focused on the deep spiritual truths? It seems that we live lives that no longer have time for the upkeep necessary for these types of experiences. The quiet errosion is missed in the hurry of our seeming essential activity. Yet in all of this, our lives are lived, and the experiences we say we crave, are never proved upon our pulses. For too many, life is written in sand.

Life is best when we listen to the deep places within our own selves. The essence of greatness is discovered in the place where silence leads us. Silence moves past motion and reintroduces us to our core principles, our identity, our loves, and our voice. From these foundations faithfully tended, we position ourselves in the center where life springs ever new, and very much our own.

We want to believe that we can make promises to ourselves and to others that provide guarantees of safety, the absence of deep conflict, and ultimately the firewall protection against the dissentegration of relationships. From the earliest days of our lives, we become fiercely attached to an idea of permanence of all that we call good. Our problem occurs when like a trapeze artist we look to take hold of the bar that will move us to the next place while never letting go of the bar that brought us to this opportunity. At best we are left pulled into two directions: one that wants to pull us back to where we have been, and one that is pulling us forward to new places and experiences. This dynamic is no longer the constructive tension that seeks resolution through development or compromise, rather a conflict that pulls us to a divided lifestyle, if not apart.

Maturation as a leader requires personal decisions to expand into the new by releasing the hold of the past. We need to feel the tension or pull toward a preferred future, but likewise, we need to stop being defined by the events, ideas, and in many ways, the people of our past. We need to let go of that which constrains us from a greater wholeness in our personal lives. For many of us, the starting point of this movement is in the conviction that love has a reversible effect on evil or a past gone awry. Yes the sum total of our past takes a second seat to the defining power of love.

I have listened to married couples lament about the failures of the past and hear them conclude that “too much has happened” for them to go on relationally. I have experienced the loss of friends because certain dark spots of experience or exposure became defining. I have listened to leaders describe themselves in limited ways because they let the past channels and territory have navigational controls in the present and for the future. All of these situations are robbed of a greater fullness and vitality that comes from not only search, but a courage that remains open and unconditionally present to the newness of things yet explored, and of a reversible past.

Love offers us all a truth, a tenderness, and a way to see through a static and limited interpretation of ourselves and our experiences so that the past is freeing and the present remains open to all possibilities. Yes we must be responsible for the effects of our past actions, but we also need to be responsible to love’s power to see a greater wholeness that integrates that which is good and otherwise within us. Our addiction to keeping permanent a present good, or in distancing ourselves from our personal experiences with past wrongs, impedes a deepening and transformation that is required for those who want expanding joy, deepening relationships, and reversing a past to free a greater present.

The next time you look into the eyes of a relationship gone bad, a situation that seems impossible, or into the depths of your own soul, choose differently from your norm. Listen to the truths just beyond the well worn words and thoughts of your past. Look to what is there, and has been there for all to see if we let love recondition our viewing lens.

Wow! This Friday morning I once again meet with about seven Executive Directors of Independent Living Centers for people with dissabilities. We have met for the last six months to look at what they can do to be more successful in impacting their communities and the clients they serve. We have spent hours looking at how we determine what constitutes a person with dissabilities, and what does not. As they have defined it thus far, I feel like I am in that client line. . .and I bet you would as well.

It is amazing how all of us resist the qualifying of ourselves as people of dissabilities. This does not play well in the prevailing world that we live in. This is either far too honest for most, or exposing a weakness that in the end will impede our opportunities. Thus we create a spin that speaks of our lives as being far from having any real weaknesses.

I sent out an email to one of my clients yesterday and stated that I had received some not so flattering feedback on him as a person and as a professional. I knew that these words would provoke his own inner agony. I knew that this would trigger a down and in movement within his own inner world. As predicted, his first response was one of fatigue and despair. He seemed to be living for the day when this kind of labeling would end.

I get that frustration and hope that I observed in my client. We want to believe that we can find a place where public or private looks of askance will go away. We want to be perceived and engaged with as people who are free from discrimination and mere tolerance. It is painful and ugly deep within ourselves, as well as within the world, whenever there is mere management of our inabilities versus acceptance and love for who we are and what we can offer today.

Ramps and adjusted furniture are tangible expressions of an initiative, but real success in our communities, and yes in our lives, will be when we see the playing field as flat - not that everyone is the same, but that everyone is equal in value, and that everyone experiences equal opportunity.