Becoming Me

Above all the grace and gifts that Christ gives to His beloved is that of overcoming self. – Francis of Assisi

Inca cola and coca tea.

The first keeps one awake for three straight days. The second is often recommended for travelers in the Andes to prevent altitude sickness. Take both for an experience guaranteed to be as glowing as that of Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

It is with such high hopes that I embark that early morning to see the hitherto Lost City of the Incas above the Urubamba River Valley. The train starts in the old town of Ollantaytambo, chugging downhill on monotonous wheels for almost four hours into the Sacred Valley and the Andean foothills.

Then I board a bus that zigzags its way up along the crooked staircase of the Picchu mountainside, passing colorful villages and herds of llamas along the way. I feel like I have stepped into some unreal world.

Borne away, cut off from time and space, I finally reach the final ascent - almost 8,000 feet above sea level. It is as close to heaven as I can hope to be.

I gaze frowningly at the tranquil panorama of the Incan citadel. With lucid recognition, I scan the stone terraces leading up to the Temple of the Sun, now bathed in a warm light. What was once lost in dreams now has been found. There under a watchful sky lies certitude. All the rest hangs on mere threads and trivial contingencies.

The dazzling impact of the radiance about me has given me a fresh discovery: that it is first necessary to take a path of descent, before I can even begin my upward path toward luminescence.

It has reminded me that I am continually evolving, wakening, and embracing my authentic self - the truest form of Me, the one whom God sees, the one inherently loved and gifted by His spirit.

It compels me to surmount my petty self, so that I may become whom I am created to be. It urges me on to capture redeeming moments by which I can be the light that blazes out to discover from ordinariness a new and meaningful organization of experience.

For only then can I rise from the bottom up to achieve the transcendence of My Being.