Gravity comes from a Latin word: Gravis. It means weighted. It represents thoughts that weigh us down. Those thoughts come from our reasoning minds. Helpful as reason can be, it only gets us so far. It is at its worst when we are faced with the very unreasonable circumstances and events of life, the ones that rock our world—and not in a happy way. Because in those situations, we want more than anything to feel like we have some control. We want a reason that will explain what is happening. We want to protect ourselves from the most fearsome aspect of the Divine: randomness.
In an effort to protect ourselves we concoct religious and political and social systems of justice that punish evildoers and lawbreakers and reward the good. Then we try to stay on the right side of those systems, deluding ourselves that we will be safe. But we have no guarantees that we will be safe. In fact the only guarantee we do get is that we, and everyone we care about, will die someday, though the circumstances are not known in advance. Despite our careful rules, we can experience all kinds of seemingly random, out of the blue events that topple our houses of cards. We often want to blame God. “What kind of God would allow this?!” we demand indignantly. Or we blame ourselves, “If only I had/had not…, then this would not have happened.” This is enlisting reason most detrimentally.
The reality is that we cannot make sense of the unreasonable. We have to defy gravity and take ourselves to a higher level. By opening ourselves to the power of Grace, our hearts open, our wisdom speaks, and we find acceptance—eventually. But this requires surrender to this higher operating system, a willingness to forego earthly justice systems and explanations, and the willingness to forgive. This is a powerful process (outlined by Carolyn Myss in the book Defy Gravity) that is life changing.
The same day I began this series at Unity, a beloved friend of Unity, a Unity minister named Kelsey Collins, took her own life. Widely loved, she left many people in shock and grief, trying to make sense of what happened, asking unreasonable questions, tempted to convict her of something that would explain her behavior. As far as I know, she left no clear explanation. But there are a few things I do know and they give me comfort in my own grief.
I know that since the 1970’s Kelsey has risen every morning around 4 a.m. to meditate for two hours. I know that anyone who does that has an uncommon connection to their own beautiful spirit. We cannot know, because reason is the wrong tool for guessing, what Kelsey’s spirit might have said to her that made her decide to throw off her physical life and run home but we can know that’s where she is. We can expect her to shine more light without the limitations of humanity than she did with them. We can forgive her for triggering our own feelings of confusion, helplessness and grief. We can defy gravity and let our spirits dance with her in her new state of being.
