I am who I am, roots and all.
I have confidence in my roots,
The roots of my experience.
Some are long and strong,
And I can rest on them
In one-legged yoga-like concentration.
They are mine.
They are me.
A few roots are short, amputated, or twisted in pain.
My branches linked with them
Are insecure,
Swayed and bashed by every kind of change.
But that's O.K.
Learning to balance on the firm roots,
To lean on the nurtured ones,
Eases pressure on the hurting memories of the past.

Lovingly attended to, they heal,
And the branches above no longer droop defensively and sheepishly,
But grow and green and grope out and up and up
To become Yahweh.

---

HOW ELIJAH MADE A MESS OF HIS RETREAT AT FIRST

?Elijah went on into the wilderness, a day's journey, and sitting under a furze bush wished he were dead. 'Yahweh' he said 'I have had enough. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.' Then he lay down and went to sleep. But an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat'. He looked around, and there at his head was a scone baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again. But the angel of Yahweh came back a second time and touched him and said, 'Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you'. So he got up and ate and drank, and strengthened by that food he walked for forty days and forty nights, until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God?.
(1 Kings 19: 4-8)
After his first day in retreat
Elijah was fed up, he'd had enough
He felt depressed, and a failure,
Having spent the day looking at himself
He wanted to die.
What upset him?
His relationship with God?
No!
What then?
Other people were as good as he!!
Exhausted by the introspective melodrama of his death wish
Elijah - went to bed.
Then he had a good dinner
And, blow me, if he didn't go back to bed again!
What's more, when he got up - he had another dinner.

At this point Elijah seems to be enjoying his retreat.
Surprisingly, God seems very pleased.
P.S. Elijah is a 6 becoming a 9 on the Enneagram!