The Centre Cannot Hold

5th June 2011 Sunday

After our ‘Course in Miracles’ morning, seven women, talking, sharing, laughing and learning; and our feast of a lunch - carrot, apple and cashew soup, olive bread, quinoa broad bean salad, green salad, potato salad, followed by black grapes and chocolate brownies - we sit in my car in a lay-by - my sisters and I - for a few minutes before they have to leave.

They ask me ‘How is it for you - really?’

I say I’m alright and of course I am - really - but my centre is wobbly. I know it’s not like being in The Great War - I just looked up that phrase

‘Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold’

from Yeats’s poem, but it describes my world today.

Most of my life I have been pursuing safety and certainty, looking to root myself somehow, somewhere, to feel at home in my skin - pointlessly as it turns out - searching in the wrong place. Now it seems is the time to start another journey - to walk with uncertainty by my side - a wolf snapping at flies in the air but not eating me. I could choose my companions - willingness and trust instead of fear and loneliness.

After today and all the loving kindness showered on me by these dear women I can see a good place to start this journey is to make my husband right. Instead of wrong. About everything. And to ask for the grace to give up my own certainty that I always know best. As a wise person once said,

‘Would you rather be right or happy?’

I’m so so grateful that I have another tomorrow to find out.

Now my husband is calling me for supper - his wonderful poached eggs on toast.