Sweeping out Monsters

Here it is... my first blog ever.  After years of hiding, I've decided to be brave, venture out, and finally live my dream of becoming a published novelist.  Part of that journey is leaping into the world of blogging. I'm inviting all who venture here to have the courage to begin to live their dreams too and not just crawl under the bed like I did after just one silly rejection letter. I hope this blog can be a source of inspiration to all who just need a little nudge to become who they were born to be.

I thought I'd start with a spooky topic of sorts since we're only a few weeks away from Halloween.

Sweeping out Monsters

The bowls of heaping dry cat food kept disappearing at an alarming rate, but my family and I just thought that our already enormous kitty had simply increased her appetite.  It wasn't until after we'd cleaned up several piles of stinky poop in the garage and banished the cat along with her food and water to the back yard that we discovered the awful truth.  There was something else living in the garage. 

For several weeks my husband had come in from the garage grumbling about the cat prints on his black Audi A6.  After the subsequent banishment of our cat to the backyard and after cleaning up countless piles of refuse which was not the norm for our cat, we, of course, expected the paw prints to stop.  My husband came home from a business trip and low and behold, the next morning another set of prints.  We questioned whether our cat had  somehow, by way of one of our children, made her way back into the garage?  A couple of days later, however, on the way out the door, I discovered that one of the seats of the bikes stored on the garage wall had been chewed up completely.  Here's a picture as proof that I'm not making this up:

I realized with dread that something was living in the garage and it was hungry enough to eat anything, maybe even small children.  Opening the garage door after a short trip to Target, I caught sight of something big and black out of the corner of my eye.  A quick search of the garage, however, yielded nothing.  And yet, I knew with certainty that something was definitely in there.  I spent the day ripping the garage apart with all of the doors on the three car garage yawning wide-open in the hopes that whatever it was would take advantage of the opportunity and leave.  But after banging around for hours looking in and behind everything, I made no progress at all in finding the creature. Reassuring myself that this dark specter had managed to find its way out during my search, I closed everything up and went to pick up my younger two children from school, although I left a tiny bit of dry cat food in a bowl "just to be sure."

But when I arrived home, sure enough, the food was gone, and I knew the hungry black beast was still in there... somewhere.  There was only one little spot in the garage that still remained unsearched,  and since my bulk was too big to crawl into the tiny space between the two work benches, I asked my nearly 12 year old son to squeeze in to take a peek.  He squeezed between the two work benches and peered behind an angled board.  "Mom," he said solemnly, "I think there is something back here."  A flashlight was retrieved and confirmed the residence of a demon beast with glowing, gold eyes of hate.  With broom in hand and the removal of the board, we we're able to coax the creature into the open where it once again retreated like lightning into the shadows.  The feral, black, tailless cat was spitting with hatred and fear and even though all the doors to the garage were thrown wide, it refused to leave.  When we gave chase and tried to direct the cat through an open door the horrible, hissing feline frantically climbed the walls instead.  The demonic thing openly rejected the opportunity to leave. It even climbed up into the under-bowels of my Chrysler Town and Country and refused to come out even after I started the van and passionately revved the engine. It wasn't until I slammed the door of my Chrysler and did a little temper tantrum under my van with the broom that the vile beast ran out into the sunshine where it was promptly chased down the street by my neighbor's tomcat.  With relief my son and I laughed about the whole experience as we watched both cats, friend and foe disappear down the road.

Since that experience I have thought many times about the unwanted things that take up residence in our lives; especially those dark things that we struggle with and hide on the inside.  I know that the internal monsters that constantly lurk in my own mind are doubt and fear.

Spiritual writer, Marianne Williamson in her book Everyday Grace tells us, “Until we have met the monsters in ourselves, we keep trying to slay them in the outer world. And we find that we cannot. For all darkness in the world stems from darkness in the heart. And it is there that we must do our work.” 

Many times I have figuratively opened the doors wide and worked to sweep out doubt and fear only to find that these twin monsters hide in dark corners and refuse to leave.  Even when I am successful in chasing my monsters down the street, they somehow return and take up residence once again metaphorically eating me dry until they are gnawing at whatever bike seats are left.  Each of us have our own monsters that we desperately want to be rid of whether they be depression, addictions, bad habits, fears, or unhealthy relationships. It is my hope that we can let the light into those dark corners and give our monsters no place to hide.  I have often heard that faith and fear cannot exist in the same space at the same time and neither can light and darkness.  Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" tells us:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” 

Isn't it time that we have our own temper tantrums with that broom and sweep our minds clean of the monsters that have taken up residence?  Isn't it time that we become who we were truly meant to be? We don't have to do it alone.  The Supreme Being of the Universe is already there eager to help us remove all of the clutter so that our lives can be fully illuminated and freed from dark influences.  And then as we eliminate our own demons we can automatically begin to help liberate those around us as we truly learn to shine.