Prepare a Plate for Life's Bounty
“..Prepare a plate before your adversaries, anoint your head with oil, your cup runneth over.” -Psalms 23:5
Quoting the bible is a first in my writing but this one arrived as I began writing.
One version of this scripture uses the word enemies but I like the word adversaries, because it can mean beliefs and habits of our mind, such as this term I learned from one of my teachers, “accepting breadcrumbs.”
Accepting breadcrumbs refers to an inequity in reciprocity especially in relationships. Ever since I heard it, it’s felt deeply confronting. I guess because as I came to understand what it meant, I could see how much gathering of crumbs to create something I’ve done in various areas of my life.
It’s one of those revelations in life that you have that brings up a feverish nausea,
a queasiness that unsettles one’s mind,
an interruption like the abrupt scratch of the needle on a vinyl record, mid-song.
Wait what!?
Buried beneath the justifications, “legit” reasons for behavior, unspoken desires, even compassion – there are times I find something that points back to something personal within.
Through one lens it is a super power – an ability to see beyond appearance, to see the essence of a situation, what’s seeking to emerge or the love/God presence within a person.
Through another lens, what some would refer to as the shadow expression, is accepting less, positioning myself as less than, or holding back expression, feeling unworthy of or unable to accept more.
I can point to the social structures in the world that created a programming where I, Black and a Woman, have received subtle and overt inferior positioning. In this paradigm, where roles are “played out” I am playing the “part” to feel uncomfortable in my full expression. Too be seen as taking up too much space to ask for what I truly want, selfish to receive a full portion of my desires or greedy to open in full reception to my desires.
Can you see the pattern? Anything “full” is what I should push back from keeping me from nourishment.
The “programming,” and I mean that deliberately, literally, – is to accept what life gives me, to find ways to get by, make do, forgo nutrient.
Many of us live our lives unaware of how deeply these patterns are running in the background, how deeply within they run – embodied in our voices, body language, interpersonal dynamics.
But then there are those moment that occur, an awakening, an interruption, big and small where a tear in the veil happens and the sunlight of the true soul shine through.
*needle scratch on the record*
An inner flame ignites, your sight clears and you see, maybe for the first time – who you really are.
Resplendent
Radiant
Unique
Neither inferior nor superior yet incomparably precious.
You desire..long, yearn for a nourishment on a soul level.
From here, we may have a tendency to demonize or criticize another’s offer to you, making it an insult. Instead, I’d invite you to shift your attention from other’s offering to first looking at how our table is prepared.
We can’t control what another does, but we can with this new awareness of who we are prepare ourselves and our lives for the bounty within the new reality we are creating.
So I’m curious - what you think it looks like for your table to be set and prepared for the beloved of your own being to come forward and life’s bounty to rain upon your life?
Drop your reflections below.