THE FLOW: MAYBE JUST ANOTHER LABEL FOR GOD.

 

The day my sister died, my mother showed up at my house at nine o'clock at night.  In the midst of the standard responses to discovering that a family member has tragically died, my mother said something that I was unable to respond to at the time, but my husband came to my rescue. 

Mom: I don't know how you can do this without Jesus.

Hubby: It's okay, Mama.  She's not lost.  We just have another label for it. 

Let me tell you about the"Flow".  I call it my common ground between myself and my husband.  It is what he was talking about that night.   The God label doesn't work for me anymore but my husband still understands a Creator and has a connection to that Creator.  I needed something to share with him without compromising our own views of life...  something not threatening to our own narratives... something just for us.  

The flow is the term we use for a lot of things in our home.  Our cats in their moments of extending comfort and closeness to us... bring us flow.  When things move around us and we can't nail it down to a direct cause, we say it's the flow.  When Hubby has a new connection with another human being, he might say it was the flow that brought that human being across his path.  

"Wait a minute." Some may say,  "That's still God, you just are using a different label."  

Maybe...  maybe it might seem that I'm still trying to explain the unexplainable with something outside of myself.  I wish I could either confirm or deny that assumption.  But I can't.  

I often see birds move in a pattern that makes me thing they are connected to something beyond their own brain.  They move together. They don't ask the other birds which direction to move.  They just move together in formation. I call that the flow.  It doesn't require conscious consent, it just requires movement.  I'm not a bird, I can't explain it beyond that.  

I already said this is my common ground with my husband.  It works for us.  One of the most attractive things in nature for me has been rivers.  They are the picture of flow for me.  How they start, where they originate, how they gain momentum and volume... these are all questions I can't comprehend on any given day.  I just stand at the shore and admire the water.  That is how it is with the flow.  

I am not a scientist and at this juncture of my life... I don't have to be one.  It's not always the natural progression when one leaves a narrative.  Often a lot of people have embraced a certain narrative for decades.  I was in my fifties when my childhood narrative made it's final exit.  That is not the age to start revisiting Physics and Biology classes.  I get to live now without having to explain things like I once had to.  How I go forward is my journey and no one else's.  

One more thing... the word that follows flow in the dictionary is flower.  One of my favourite things in nature.  How precious is that!