Messenger discovers the perfect word to describe the swerve her messages are meant to bring about. Alana’s frustration grows. She learns more about Ed’s story.
We’re looking for your stories of receiving a message from an unexpected source. Or, can you tell us what message would you like to receive—or give? We want to hear your stories - long or short, profound or pedestrian, and to collect any messages you'd like to share. Send us an email at messengerthenovel@gmail.com, and you can see some that we’ve already received on our social media pages. We look forward to hearing from you!
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Episode 7 Complete Text 📖
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MESSENGER IS A NO-SHOW
Alana shook. She’d chewed and picked her cuticles so much waiting for Messenger that morning she’d made both thumbs and her right forefinger bleed. Uhhh! Gross! she thought. Look what she’s made me do. No, Alana, she countered. You did this all on your own.
Messenger had agreed to meet her in the park, near the pigeon guy, because Messenger said she wanted to walk around the fountain. The pigeon guy had come, fed the pigeons. When all the breadcrumbs were gone, he let them perch all over him. Alana could hardly watch.
Messenger is making me insane, Alana thought. She’d cancelled coffee with Mary, whom she hadn’t seen in weeks, to meet Messenger instead. Besides, she felt terrible. Her nose was running and she wasn’t so sure she didn’t have a fever. Clouds had rolled back in and it smelled like snow. Great! She walked around the park to try and calm down even though she’d already done two loops. Still no sign of Messenger. Alana knew it was her problem, she was blowing Messenger’s “no-show” out of proportion, but she couldn’t help it. Whenever people were even a minute late, Alana catapulted back to day-care, elementary school, middle school days, when she was always the last one picked up. Oh, she’d understood why. Her mom explained it every time she was late. She was sorry, but her shift had run over. They were extra busy at the hospital or the relief nurse had been late.
In day-care days, Alana had known her mom was just next door, in the hospital. As a very little girl, the dreaded sound of toe-tapping made tears jump into her eyes. Miss Carol, who waited by the curb with her, always smiled reassuringly. But she tapped her toe. Alana cringed at that sound. It got inside her and made her own fear grow that, after all her mom’s promises, she really wasn’t coming. No one was.
Alana shook her head, dismissed the memory and began another loop through the park. When she returned to her own starting point again, she finally gave up. Messenger wasn’t coming today. That was clear. Alana’s thoughts flitted to the altar, now trashed in the alley. A stab of fear filled her. Had something happened to Messenger?Probably not. She’d been a no-show before. But now, to Alana, it felt like the stakes had been raised, that danger and violence lurked around them.
Alana shook her head and decided to walk over to another coffee shop she liked, The Dove, on Fourth Street. She hadn’t been there for a long time, not since her Messenger project had started. Another wasted day. She sucked the side of her sore thumb. Something’s going to have to change, she decided, if this book is ever going to get written.
POST: JAKE
I’m driving down the East Side Highway on a Tuesday, happy to be moving at a decent clip, for a change. It’s a clear, sunny day and all is right with my world. That is, until suddenly this black aluminum bookshelf, three-feet-by-five, comes hurtling towards me from off the back of a blue Ford 150 pickup truck. This isn’t one of those experiences where time slows down. No. That happened to me before in a snowstorm when I did a 360 on I-95. This goes way, way fast. Hyper-speed! All I can do is swerve! Hard!
The bookshelf misses my windshield by a hair—scrapes the side of my car, bounces off and crashes to the road with the most sickening screech of metal-on-asphalt you’ve ever heard. I plow into a green Subaru and just about take out the whole passenger side of the car, which is empty—Thank God! Anyway, we pull our cars over to the shoulder. The damn pickup guy just drives off like nothing ever happened but I’m too shook up to catch his license plate number. He’s long gone. I call the police and get out of the car, feel like I’ve been run over myself, but am just happy to be alive.
This girl gets out of the other car and, despite everything that’s happened in the last five minutes, I register that she’s very good-looking. She’s fighting back tears—I can tell by the way her chin shakes and she bites her bottom lip
“Oh, wow,” I begin. “I’m really sorry . . .”
She interrupts me. “How did you miss that bookshelf? What was that wack job thinking?”
“It was airborne, I tell you.”
“I thought you were a goner.”
“I know.” I clear my throat, steady my own voice. “I called the cops. Sorry I mashed your car.”
“Oh, no. I’m just so glad.” She touches my arm and we just stare at each other.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell her. “They’ll be here soon. Well—we’re alive!”
She says, “If you hadn’t swerved . . .” Her words hang on the air, something just between the two of us. That’s when time does slow down. I hear the siren call in the distance but don’t look away from her.
“Both of us could be dead right now,” I finish her sentence.
“But we’re not. You swerved just enough to save us.”
My car’s drivable, so after all this (she doesn’t give me her number. Engaged!) even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I head to my buddy’s on the Lower East Side who’s moving. That’s the reason I was out in the first place, to give him a hand. I pull up to the curb by his apartment and notice this old woman on the street. I get out of the truck, make sure the door’s locked, turn around. She’s standing right there beside me on the sidewalk. Her hand’s stretched out and there’s a piece of paper in it.
Our eyes meet and that’s when I feel like I’ve walked through a time warp. My knees buckle, like I’m going to pass out. She hands me the paper and before I can get my head straight, she’s gone. Where or how, I don’t know. I look down at the paper, just a dirty scrap with something scribbled on it in smeary blue ballpoint ink. I read it. I lean against the truck, know I’ll crack my head on the sidewalk if I try to stand on my own. After everything that happened to me that day, then I get this message, YOU JUST COLLIDED WITH YOUR DESTINY. It blows my mind! It still does, today.
The girl breaks her engagement. We get married three months later.
ALANA’S NOTEBOOK:
Transcript of interview with Gloria:
ALANA: (Gloria handed her message to me. Unseen hands guide you. The worst is over.) How has this one message changed you? No offense, but this message, at face value, seems . . .
GLORIA: Vague? Trite, even? I know. It does, doesn’t it? But what appears on the surface to be so random, isn’t! At my point of despair, I received it. How would that woman know what I needed to hear when I needed to hear it? And she was right. The message was right. The worst WAS over. My husband passed away gently about a month later. How could she know that? She didn’t know me.
The message told me everything I needed to know at the time. What are the odds against a poor, probably homeless woman writing this important message down and then finding me outside the healthcare center? I’m nobody special. Thinking back, it told me someone or something out there cared what happened to me, was working to help me. Somehow sent the message to me through her. It was such a huge relief.
NOTES:
I interview as many people in person as possible who’ve respond to my blog. After talking with many of them, it’s clear Messenger has been at this for a very long time. Years. Decades. Nobody tried to connect the dots until Marty. Now me. Sometimes the person will pull a message out of a wallet, with fingerprints all over it, to show me. Were they Messenger’s or the recipient’s, who’d worn the message out from reading it over and over? Some people got messages and threw them away accidentally. Or lost them. One lady lost hers and it still breaks her heart, but she’d memorized the message and copied it onto a card so she always has it. Others treasure them, consider their lives divided into before and after their message. Lives have been changed. One message did it.
Usually the message itself is simple and never that spectacular. “Continue on your path.” “You are loved beyond measure.” That’s a recurring theme. “Unseen hands support you at every turn.” Another favorite. “You are never alone.” Then some of the messages are actually very specific.
Then there’s the bigger thing Messenger keeps mentioning—the swerve or the change that the messages are a part of. How?
THE CLINAMEN
Alana walked down First Avenue towards Ed’s at about 10 a.m. on a beautiful, bright Monday morning. Only a few low hanging, fluffy white clouds broke the blue sky and the temperature was in the 40’s—warm for this time of year. No wind for a change. But her thoughts didn’t match the weather. She’d tried to shake off Messenger’s no-show, but the sick, familiar feeling of being forgotten, that started in her gut and then spread all over, hadn’t left her.She sighed. How are you ever going to get enough information for a book, the way things are going, she fretted, with Messenger so unpredictable? She passed tourists rolling suitcases along the dirty sidewalks, speaking German, French. She heard some British or Australian accents. A guy in a short-sleeved T-shirt that read, “Don’t tell me to Smile,” nudged past her.
Through Ed’s window, Alana spied Messenger perched on her stool at the long table. She smiled and waved.
Alana forced herself to wave back, then went in and walked over to their table.
“You okay, honey? You look like you could use a hug.” She held out her arms.
Alana didn’t answer but grudgingly allowed Messenger to embrace her. However, Messenger pulled away earlier than usual. Holding on to Alana’s arms, she asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
Messenger patted the empty stool beside her.
“Did you save it for me?” she asked, her face neutral. She unzipped her coat and draped it over the stool.
“Just for you!” Messenger giggled. “Go get some coffee, then I’ve got some wonderful news!”
She sure is in a good mood. Alana frowned, as she left Messenger’s side and shuffled up to the bar. She doesn’t care. She probably doesn’t even remember.
“Hey,” Ed greeted her.
She managed to smile at him. “Hi Ed. How’s it going?”
“Great!”
“Super!” Everybody’s in a good mood but me, Alana though. “A cappuccino, please,” an out-of-the-blue splurge she hoped would make her feel better. She took a deep breath, tried to shake off her mood.
“I’ll bring it over in a minute.”
“Thanks.” She waded through Messenger’s bags strewn around her stool and sat down. “What’s your news,” she forced herself to keep her voice light.
Messenger handed her a chocolate, then took a sip of her coffee. “Have you ever heard of a Clinamen?” she asked. Messenger’s face shone.
Alana shook her head. She had to take advantage of Messenger’s effervescent mood, so she decided not to mention the no-show. “A what?”
“C-l-i-n-a-m-e-n. I saw that word on a license plate this morning, on a green Mini-Cooper. They are so cute!”
Alana dug out her notebook and jotted the word down. “Never heard of it. What does it mean?”
“Well, the license plate actually said, ‘CLINAMN.’ It stuck with me for some reason, like it was important. I was curious. Ed looked it up for me just now, right Ed?” she called to him.
Ed, busy with Alana’s drink, nodded without looking up.
Alana stared at the word. A vague term from a poetry class in college tried to form, but she couldn’t pull it back.
“Come to find out, there is actually a word—c-l-i-n-a-m-e-n.”
“How do you say it?”
“Who knows? We don’t know for sure. Ed got lots of ideas from this definition/pronunciation site. Clean-a-men, Cline-a-men. Also, Clin-a-men. Potato, Potaa-to. Who cares! It’s what it means that matters. It’s the word I’ve been looking for, for so long. It means ‘a change. A swerve.’ It’s exactly what I’ve been telling you about! Now we have a word for it.”
Ed walked Alana’s coffee over, set the cup down and hurried back to the bar.
“Thanks, Ed,” she said, then noticed he’d made a heart in the foam. She felt her face flush hot. She looked up but he was back waiting on customers. Wow! Messenger’s bubbling over about her new word, Ed’s heart, the warmth of the coffeeshop—everything felt cozy and homey. Alana watched her anger melt away and turned her attention back to Messenger.
“So now your favorite word is Clinamen?”
Messenger grew still, suddenly serious. “Yes. It’s a very good word. Let’s use it. I’m not afraid or nervous about it.”
“Why would you be afraid?”
“Because it’s big! Very big! Everything’s going to shift with this Clinamen that’s coming. I know you’ve heard of these Mayan, Native American and other prophecies about end times. The Clinamen’s what they were all talking about. Do you see?”
“I’m not sure,” Alana answered. She tried to follow Messenger, but couldn’t help but wonder, Is she just plain out there? NUTS? Alana pushed her fears aside and glanced over at Ed, as Messenger talked on. What does he think? she wondered. “Do you mean the Clinamen will bring the end of the world? The Apocalypse?”
“Oh, no, Honey. Not the end. A new beginning! Listen,” Messenger continued. “Let me explain it another way. Everything’s going to shift over, see?” She took a big swig of her coffee and Alana noticed only a few red flecks of fingernail polish on her nails today. “It’s just like that TV thing. Remember? When they switched over to another mode?”
“I don’t have a TV.” Alana streamed everything on her computer.
“That’s okay. Me either! I just watch it in stores myself, until they kick me out. Look, I know I smell bad but give me a break!” She giggled. “What will make this switch-over, this swerve happen? As soon as enough people get here, or get up to speed, that’s it. The tipping-point. Let’s just call it the Clinamen—like you said—my new favorite word.”
“But what about your messages? How do they fit in?”
The coffee shop was crowded now and getting loud. People waiting in line for a table gave them dirty looks since they’d finished their drinks, until Ed walked back over and set two brownies down in front of them.
“Chocolate helps everything,” Messenger squeaked. “Have I already told you that?”
“You have. Thanks, Ed.” Alana allowed herself to glance up at him, but Ed didn’t make eye contact.
“No problem,” he mumbled.
Messenger picked up her thread. “It won’t take as many people as you might think, Honey, to tip it. No-sir-ree! Not so many. That’s what folks don’t get either.”
Alana prompted. “The messages?”
“Look, I’m just delivering these messages until the Clinamen. They come to me over, let’s just say, the airwaves. Sometimes sweet. Sometimes bitter. I can’t control it. I’ll just use the words until I use them up. Talk about a revolution. This earth will no longer be a place for despots or dictators. They can’t block this.” Messenger pointed up at the sky with each sentence. Light shone out of her clear eyes and face as she got more wound up.
“So those places where they’re still holding folks down—women especially? They’re gonna get it. Everybody’s going to get it. I mean everybody. Not just the rich man, bottom of his shoes cleaner than my whole body. They’ll be no match for it. I shout hallelujah!” She popped up, stuck both fists out in front of her and rolled her hips around 360. “Oh, Baby, yes! I got my groove back now. Feels so good!” Then she laughed when Ed clapped for her. She made a little bow.
Alana held on to the table because she felt the shivering begin and the vertigo that sometimes came with it. Excitement, too. Yes! This is it, she thought. The bigger story I’ve been trying to get her to tell me about. We’re finally getting somewhere. She glanced at Ed to read his face. He smiled back. Alana felt like they’d shared an adventure together today, with Messenger.Alana finished the brownie and took the last tiny sip of the foam with Ed’s heart. What a morning! she thought. Now, I’ve got to learn more about this Clinamen.
ALANA’S NOTEBOOK: CLINAMEN RESEARCH
Clinamen=singular
Clinamina=plural
Clinamen: very slight deviation, inclination or bias—the act of deliberately breaking a stylistic rule to enhance the beauty of an otherwise perfect whole
Clinamen: in poetry, a poetic misreading or a reading only accurate up to a point but then should have swerved; precisely in the direction the new poem works.
Lucretius—century before Christ: An unpredictable “swerve” of the atoms so as to make change possible in the universe.
Lucretius De Natura Rerum, Book II
“Again, if all movement is always interconnected, the new arising from the old in a determinant order—if the atoms never swerve so as to originate some new movement that will snap the bonds of fate, the everlasting sequence of cause and effect—what is the source of the free will possessed by living things throughout the world?”
Brought out of the Dark Ages 1417 Poggio Florentinus—book hunter
Finnegan’s Wake=James Joyce=MAJOR SWERVE
Harold Bloom—The anxiety of influence states that poets need to misread precursors (that’s what I remembered from school)
Clinamen: contains concealed power—it is never what you expect—it never comes from where you expect it
Yesterday, at Ed’s, everything seemed so clear, but today, I’m not sure. What’s going on? First, the messages. Now the bigger story, this Clinamen thing. Are the messages just the tip of the iceberg? Messenger says the messages are part of the Clinamen, but she won’t say how. At least I don’t get it. Is Messenger in this all alone? Is Ed part of it? How about all the neighborhood characters? Jackie? The Flower Lady? The Professor? What about random people we see on the street? The Chihuahua Lady, too? And the destroyed altar, was that random or was there a purpose? Was it supposed to scare her? Or me? I need to find out more about her past. How did she become a Messenger? Maybe that’ll help me figure some of this out.
MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK: THE CLINAMEN
So, you see, everything we think we know and understand is wrong. The Clinamen comes when we least expect it—yes, the thief in the night. We’re completely unprepared and it comes. When you think everything is over, it comes. When you’ve given up any shred of hope, it comes. When you’re ready to cash in your chips, it comes. When you think you’ve got it made, have it all, at least have it all figured out, it comes. When you feel so alone you wish you could die, it comes. That is the beginning.
A slight swerve that changes everything. A life. A city. The world. Nobody knows what it will be. Could be just a little, bitty thing. Maybe just a smile you give a sad-looking person. The words, thank you. Maybe you hold a door for an old lady. You let a hurried person go first in line or give somebody a hand up. That’ll be it. Just one little push in the right direction.
Done!
We’ll all be home.
Believe it.
It will happen. But understand it might be up to you. Even if you’re worn out and don’t feel like it today. You’ve got to take matters into your own hands. I’m just doing what I can do moment by moment. That’s what my life, what the messages—that’s what all this is about.
ED’S STORY
Alana sat with Messenger watching Ed fill drink orders. Ed had been nice enough that morning but made no time to speak when Alana got to the front of the line. She could have been anybody.Alana and Messenger watched a beautiful young woman, gold bracelets up both arms, jewels clipped into her ebony hair, nose pierced with a gold stud. She had just walked by, arm in arm with an older woman. Her mother, Alana guessed.
Alana bristled when Ed paused to chat a minute with them; then, without thinking, she blurted out, “What’s Ed’s story?”
Messenger turned and glanced over at Ed, now waiting on an old guy with a full, gray beard and glasses, loads of keys on a huge keychain hooked on his belt. He wore a roll of blue painter’s tape on one wrist like a bracelet. He came in often and Alana had overheard Ed comp him coffee. Ed stopped to talk with him, too. Messenger sipped her coffee. “Oh, Ed and I go way back. Don’t we, Ed?” she called out.
Ed bobbed his head and winked at Messenger. She gave him a huge smile. Alana sensed the magnetic energy between them and fought to ignore the stab of jealousy that pricked her heart.
Alana steadied her voice. “So, you just know him from the neighborhood?”
“Sort of. Ed’s been my port in the storm for a long time. He’s had a rough go of it but he’s doing much better.”
“How? What happened to him?”
Messenger smiled. “That’s Ed’s story to tell you when he’s ready.”
Well, that’s not happening, Alana mused. Even though Ed had opened up slightly, their conversations were still monosyllabic. The day she’d admired his iris tattoo and he’d pulled back? That was a perfect model for how they interacted. Ed was warm, cold, medium. Alana never knew what she’d get. But what is Messenger hinting about him? she wondered. What happened to him? “Ed doesn’t share much with me.”
“Really?” Messenger studied her face. “I thought you all were getting to be friendly.”
As Alana noticed Ed was still talking with the old guy, drunk popped into her head. The word had flashed through her, like quick-silver. Not from her brain but a dawning within her. Where did that come from? She wondered. Why would I think that about Ed?
Her face flushed when she realized Messenger was still staring at her. “Is that why he works all the time?” she asked, trying to cover.
“Maybe. All I’ll say is this—and it’s true of everybody. When something hurts you real bad there’s always two ways to go. Hard or soft.”
“You mean life hardens or softens you?”
She nodded. “Which way would you say it’s gone? For Ed, I mean.”
“Hard,” Alana blurted and crossed her arms. “Closed up. Tight-lipped. Doesn’t give much.”
“Look again, Honey.”
Alana glanced back. Ed was listening to a hipster boy who gestured wildly with both hands and sloshed his coffee on the counter, which Ed swabbed up.
“There it is,” Messenger said. “Do you see it?”
“Soft?” Alana murmured.
“Uh huh. You got it, Baby. Good for you. Life makes hard places in people who need healing—childhood, things that happen along the way.”
Alana turned her attention away from Ed and back to Messenger. “What about me?”
Messenger didn’t answer. Instead, those amber eyes looked through her. At what, Alana didn’t know.
Alana glanced back at Ed and frowned. “Have you ever given him a message? Was that how you met?” As nice as Ed tried to act, those flowers and that heart, Alana knew he was still withholding information from her. Messenger had just revealed there were secrets just the two of them shared. That’s how Ed and Messenger wanted it to stay. Regardless of what was going on between Messenger and Ed, Alana wanted both of them to look at her in that loving way. Another stab of jealousy pricked her.
“No,” Messenger’s voice was quiet. “Just like you, Ed hasn’t gotten a message. I’ve told you that’s out of my hands.”
Alana saw an opening. “Messenger, lots of people have posted about their messages and how they’ve changed their lives for the better. It’s really amazing all the good you’ve been doing! But the Clinamen seems the bigger story here. Can’t you tell me more about it?”
Messenger laughed.
“Okay. What’s so funny?”
“Honey, you still have a lot to learn. We don’t know how or when the Clinamen will come. We just need to keep moving forward toward. Working for the good until it happens.”
Alana sipped the rest of her coffee. She’d been so excited about the Clinamen, had hoped it would be the key. But it had only left her with more questions. She had so many questions now, she didn’t know where to start—the messages, the altar, now the Clinamen. Messenger’s past. She had to get some backstory! Messenger seemed incapable of answering a simple question or staying on the subject. Ed could be helpful if he wanted to and provide another perspective on Messenger. What’s this flirting about? Is he toying with me? Nobody was willing to talk to her or help her, which Alana felt was just plain wrong. Granted, Alana wanted to write a great story and make a name for herself. But was it right to keep something so wonderful, something that had definitely changed people’s lives a big secret like this? Didn’t everyone deserve to know about the messages and what was behind them? Especially if some great change was about to happen?
She dove in: “Messenger, when are you going to let me launch? Everything you tell me makes me more anxious to get the word out. Interest is growing! Don’t you want people to know more about what you’re doing? Listen, it’s rough out here. People feel alone. Hopeless. Desperate. Don’t you want to let people know the good news about the Clinamen?”
“Mm-hmm, okay. You can’t see the big picture, baby. I agreed to your book idea, remember? We’ll do everything you want, but only when the time is right. Not before. You just gotta trust. You’ve just got to be patient. Timing’s everything, especially for the Clinamen. I’ll let you know. Okay?”
Alana slumped on her stool but had to agree and go along with her, even if she wasn’t happy about it. Messenger smiled again at Ed, then patted Alana’s cheek. She looked over all the faces in Ed’s now-crowded Starbucks and through the window at the lines of people walking back and forth outside.
“Listen, Honey. Healing is what I’m about. I have a boiling energy to heal. Believe me, I know how bad things are for my babies.” Messenger chuckled. “I call you all my babies, even folks older than me. This is about past, present and future—all at the same time. Bringing hope for the next generation. But we can’t get ahead of ourselves. Our aim is to work in the present moment. That’s how it’s done. That’s the point of power. Sure, I’d like to gather you together once and for all so everybody’ll be safe and warm. I want to make everything right for all of you. I’d put something gentle and nice on whatever ails you, make it feel better. Hold you awhile and just let the pain pour out. Listen to every word, every syllable, every moan, every cry. I’d collect every tear ever shed.” She wiped her eyes, then turned back to Alana, spoke softly, just to her. “My words are like that. I feel it when they hit their mark. Mostly, my messages? To let them know they’re not alone. The biggest delusion there is. You are not on your own. No—even if you think you might want to be. That is not a choice. That’s the one thing you can never be.”
“Who are you?” Alana whispered. Each word shook as it poured out of her mouth.
MESSENGER’S COMPOSITION BOOK: 10 ELEMENTS
1. Face of a baby
2. Calm of any animal or wild thing
3. Old person—as they go into themselves
4. Priest or monk or nun’s laughter=real deal
5. Mother’s gaze over sleeping head of child
6. Lovers’ secret glances
7. Old man and his dog
8. Artist with paintbrush
9. Musician—eyes closed while playing
10. Every cell of a body hums with a new melody
Oh, Babies—don’t you see? Don’t you feel how very much you’re loved? Feel it in your bones—your blood. Every part of you. You’re beautiful. And you’re powerful. Don’t be afraid. Or better yet, let that fear get you moving. Get up off your butt and back into life.
It all started when you entered that torture chamber—school. They tried everything they could to beat it out of you. Made you sit still and pay attention to the most boring things when you needed to move, to touch, to talk with your classmates. That’s how we learn best.
They wanted you all to be just the same. But what you needed was love. What you needed was tenderness. Somebody to build you up, not knock you down. That’s all. Just a little bit of kindness. Specially on those hard days when you came to school hungry or tired because you had to listen to your mom and her boyfriend fight all night long. Or you didn’t know, when the school bus took you home in the afternoon, if you’d still have a home. Or, if all your family’s belongings would be sitting on the sidewalk. All your clothes dumped into a green garbage bag or blown into the street. You want people to treasure you, to see you, to hear your voice.
I want to tell the Baby Child twitching to:
Jump
Cheat
Cut
Purge
Binge
Smoke
Snort
Shoot up
Swallow the pills
Down the fifth
Beat
Run
Hide
Kill
It’s not like that. It’s not like that!
Loving is the direction you want to go in. Not fear. Don’t go down that road. Love casts out fear. Learn the love way. You’re safe here, Baby. Believe it. We love you. Don’t let anybody tell you different. The universe—every bit of it—loves you to distraction. An amazing, unstoppable force of love is behind you every step of the way. No matter how bad it seems or how mean or ornery people can be. All of creation is delighted you’re here. We all worked hard to get you here in the first place, you know. And we’re working every day to protect you.
© 2nd Star, LLC