From the very first breath we take to our last we all have one common truth, a similarity that binds us beyond our skin color, our sex, our status, our looks, our nationality… It’s an ache, it’s a need, it’s a desire so deep that we do not know where it comes from or where it goes, it just is. Consuming our whole being, it makes us scream, it makes us cry, it makes us laugh, it drives us mad and fills our very essence with light and raging darkness. Making us angels and monsters in the paramount grace called life.

It is quest, a consternation fraught with confusion. We reach for it as though our very breath clung to it for oxygen. We run from it, all the while holding our arms open to it, hoping it will capture us, imprison us forever.

We seek it in our waking time, our sleeping time. It haunts our thoughts, our bodies, our spirits. Imbuing us with a wanton, a desire we cannot articulate. Driving us mad from within and without. Scriptures belie it resides within the soft parchment sheets, the temples say it is within the walls, we catch ourselves spinning, spinning, spinning in manic seeking.

We don the mask, paint the face, outfit the physique, astutely watch our checks and balances, while becoming rigid in the facade that is our body! Cracking apart from within, we fall prey to gorging, binging, purging, hoping that somehow we can release the ache, the need, shut up the quest!

Still it pecks at your skin, it claws from within, crying for you to hear. A truth gaining volume above the din of your earbuds, the static of the square screens merely play jest with your desire, pouring gasoline onto your passions with lying promises and quick fixes.

The day has come, air squeaks weakly in, barely audible except for the mirror which shows the moist vapor of life. Floating not here or there, the fuzzy outlines of shadows move around you. This is it, the final moment has come. The beginning and end meet in the middle, poignantly beckoning you to recall. Too trodden, you claw for the knowing, “Did I find it? Did I at least briefly dance with the truth of my desire? Was it there all along, hidden behind the smog of my existence.”

A sky filled movie screen dances across the space. Suspended, frozen, unable to move you are forced to observe. Warm fluid slides into your ears, the faintest splash of a strategically placed tear rises up to caress your moist resting place. Your minds eye wishes to hit rewind, it is too late, that scene is over. No muscle is strong enough to lift the lid which keeps the light out, yet you see. Motionless you watch your autobiography spill out.

Your breath catches at the sight, the innocence, the pureness, the love, the joy, the grace.., it lies there wiggly and new, screaming at the cold air to put it back where it is warm and safe. The quest starts now! Startled you are pulled, there is no escape, the two deep endless saucers hold you hostage to the parlay of your time line.

The flood assuages, you are not of liberty to cork the release, for the fight is over, the siege has ended, the release from your prison cell awaits the clink of the last key in the lock. Laughter knocks up against your skull, it vibrates down the esophageal tunnel, scratching its way to the barely pulsing red meat that keeps you there in that place. There you are, that’s where the laughter is coming from, you see, you feel, your feet want to dance with the child who holds out an invitation. “Wait, don’t go, don’t leave me yet! I want to dance, I want to laugh, I want to be with you.” No time, must keep moving, the hour glass is almost out of sand.

Darkness descends, nothing, there is nothing. Wait, there, over there, a light flashes. You want to point, to tell the shadows you feel nearby that it is just over there. Paralyzed, you can’t budge. Blinded, it is so bright, so fast, so intense. Fast forward is stuck and will not pause. The only indication of the graced displayed is witnessed by the watcher in a tear, a smile, a furrowed brow, a pained cringe, an expansive blushing.

Oh if only. “If only in this moment I could show you”, your wrinkled weightless being screams. They cannot hear your wafting plea. A final image softly presents itself, “I see, I know, I hear, I feel… it is, I am!” Sinking into the pillow of past, present and now, you gasp for the last tendrils of life, the quest has culminated in this spark. The silence is broken – “CHOSEN” scratchily squeaks forth as all settles into final stillness.

Suspended you gaze. No longer do you search, no longer do you ache, no longer do you desire, no longer do you feel lost and abandoned. If only you could bestow upon those below, the truth, the real truth, the treasure discovered on the quest. If they only knew, it was waiting, it was ready, it was always there!

Rising, the faint blue ball becomes obscured by a veil. With all the human might left within you, you attempt to exhale the truth for all to hear. Praying that it will descend into the souls of the masses, for it is the truth to set them ALL free.

“Chosen, you all are chosen!! Walk this, be this, practice this, share this, bestow this, absorb and receive this. Let it go, let it in, hold it dear, and share it as though your life depends upon it, for it does. Do not quest, stop your search, awaken to the truth which already resides within your being. All you ever desired is wrapped up in your ability to choose and be chosen. It is all you ached for from your first breath to your last, to be chosen and to choose…. Act upon this truth in all your moments. You are chosen always – no matter what! However, if you do not share it, you will never know it and all will be lost as you gasp your last.”