Recently, I got locked out of the house. It wasn’t my house so I did not know all of its little intricacies including the one about the front door bolt sometimes slipping down into the catch on its own. So I went outside to do a chore and when I came back the door was bolted shut.<\/p>\n
At first I didn’t believe it. It was impossible. The bolt had to be physically turned from the inside to lock the door. In my disbelief I began to pull on the door shaking and rattling it to force it to open. It was definitely locked. Then I growled and noticed the panic rising. I had a full day that included a list of other chores before making my way to the airport to catch a plane.<\/p>\n
Going around to the back of the house to see if I’d left the back door open was futile because I knew I’d locked it five minutes earlier when I’d let the cat out. I did it anyway. Then I checked all the windows and found one that could be opened if I forced it. I stopped trying when my arm began to bleed.<\/p>\n
As I returned to the front of the house to escape the burning late-morning Florida sun I said a prayer. Well, barked one, actually. “Okay, what am I supposed to do about this?” Maybe I even said, “What the hell<\/em> am I supposed to do about this?” I was highly aware of my resistance and lack of calm.<\/p>\n With that awareness I took a seat on the shady front porch and started to listen for the answer. I was locked out. What could I do? Not much. Did the rage help? Not a bit.<\/p>\n A lizard about the size of my hand sashayed out of the shrubbery and stopped a couple of feet away, watching me out of the corner of its eye, its tiny sides expanding and contracting rapidly with breath. That lizard did not have a big agenda. It moved again, stopped, moved again. Each time it stopped I stayed with it, with the power of its total presence, its utter lack of agenda. The lizard eventually moved on and I thanked it because it had brought me into the here and now.<\/p>\n Reflecting on my anger I saw that it had come from the fact that I was not going to be able to fulfill my agenda. My agenda had not only been meticulously planned (go inside, finish chores, accomplish tasks, eat some food, take a spiritual direction call, get to the airport and fly away), I was counting on the fact that it was all going to take place. I was upset because the future I’d planned was not going to happen. But that future was not my actual life. My actual life, my unfolding life<\/em> in reality<\/em>, was sitting on the porch, locked out of the house in +35C heat, learning life-lessons from lizards. There was nothing else. All the other stuff was just a bunch of thoughts that I had allowed to become expectations.<\/p>\n To commit to the spiritual journey means that when any challenge comes our way we stay open to the transforming opportunity being presented. I closed my eyes, went within and listened.<\/p>\n Let go. Wait. Trust.<\/em><\/p>\n Letting go of all my plans and seeing that the world would not come to an end by doing so, I went and picked some starfruit from a tree in the yard, thankful for the moisture it provided my thirsty mouth. With that action came an intuitive thought: Maybe I could knock on the neighbours doors? Fear rose up. I sat with it and then followed the prompt. Within minutes, two generous men were walking around the house with me looking for a spare key or a way to get in. Then one of them got a screwdriver and jimmied a window open. Hallelujah! I climbed into the cool, air-conditioned house, relieved and dripping with sweat.<\/p>\n As the rest of the day unfolded and the agenda got accomplished I kept meditating on a deeper question that came out of the experience: Where am I “locked out”? Or what am I “locking out” of my life?<\/p>\n