All life has its own current. Are you moving with it - or are you struggling upstream?
-- Oprah Winfrey

Over the weekend a friend explained that she had learned how to flow with life. Earlier in her life, she’d insistently fought against the currents and felt the ground of sand slide swiftly away from under her feet. Now, seasoned by life and experiences, my friend floats freely with the waves of life, makes friends with the jellyfish and albatrosses, and prayerfully, gracefully, and peacefully receives whatever washes ashore.

Oh that we could each embrace this attitude.

Imagine if you would the constant tides of the sea motioning at some times as gentle wind-blown ripples that meet a waiting shoreline; at other times an ocean’s current is as ferocious as a lion pursuing and consuming its prey. Most times, though, the sea is as calm as the sun rising and setting, and not even a storm passing over can change its constitution. The ocean is the ocean and it flows any which way it chooses.

Much like life. Life flows in many different directions, in many different ways. Sometimes life is up, marked by triumphs and celebrations, then, in the blink of an eye, it can be down, with sadness and pain around every corner. Most times, life is somewhere in between the extremes wanting you to just ride its surf.

Oh that we could just ride.

It’s only when you simply allow life to take you along its currents, whatever they may be, that you become stronger and more capable of managing all that swims and surfaces through its currents. It’s when you stop fighting the strong undertow of life that you begin to float and experience life in a new way. When you give in to life’s many uncertainties, carrying with you the lifeboat of faith and life jacket of love, even when it feels as though you will drown amid the circumstances and situations life presents; when you cease trying to beat back the currents of life, punching at it as though you could make it do what you want and getting angry, sullen, and fatigued as life takes on its own shape; when you simply accept that you’re a pawn and all of life is waiting for you to relax so it can give you all it wishes for you to have; then, and only then, can you finally be free.

Oh that we could be open to that which begets such freedom.

Hoist your sail and move with life’s flow. After all, swimming daily against the current can wear you out, distract your course, and bury you beneath the sea.

Sadiqqa © 2007