Standing on the Second Threshold

On the second threshold - Surrender 
When was I Ever Less in Dying? Rumi

"Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.”  Jesus, John 21

Just when it seemed 
I had found my bearings
on this strange and stormy path

having passed through
lush and open fields
that deepened

a knowing place
and carved out wide channels 
in my heart for Love

I came to a pathless 
place so unknown
to me that 

I couldn't tell if was a 
dark foreboding wood
or a sheer cliff.

Frozen in time
and space
I reached into my bag

for the compass that
kept me on course
now spinning hopelessly

and the canteen 
of intention whose
sweet water had run dry.

A voice from the
bright abyss rose
like the sound of an 

earthquake from the 
ground of being and
from the sky above    

My bag now emptied of all 
tools of navigation shimmered 
with a bright luminescence
 
as if Golden Threads of 
purpose were woven 
into the very fabric of the bag

Illuminating 
pure
longing

I folded the bag
around my waist 
as if girded with

courage
I knew what
to do. . .