I ain’t gonna study war no more

I ain’t gonna study war no more

These days all my lessons are the same.

Every teaching brings me back to the same well, and I do not mind one bit. A reversal of the highest order, and I am so HERE for it—meaning, it is WHY I am here.

The essential teaching resonates in light of the tried and untrue scheme in which I unwittingly (and, at times, admittedly, wittingly!) enrolled. My earliest training, born, as it was, of the upheaval of an abusive childhood, foster care stints, and the misuse of my precious body, was a crash course in war. I survived exceedingly well, but I came to believe that everything—e v e r y –l i t t l e- t h i n g—was ultimately a lesson in pain and served to teach me how to strengthen my defenses for the next time.

Around every corner was a lesson in why no one is to be trusted—including myself. The only thing I could trust was the certainty of pain. Even my glories—the things I enjoyed, did well, or that made me feel alive—I diligently studied for vulnerability and shored up even there, nearly eradicating enjoyment, or at the very least, teaching me to see my own enjoyment as a danger indicator. I sought to affirm that education in my art, in my relationships, and in my body. All parts suffered as the orientation to war had me living scared and miserly.

Ultimately, it was the screaming in my body that startled me into disavowal, and it was love that beckoned from behind (what I once thought were) enemy lines, into a new education. Face to face with seizures, endometriosis, and, for the first time in my life, really facing the depth and seriousness of childhood trauma—I needed another way. All of my elaborate defenses proven detrimental, I was invited to surrender to the possibility that maybe love was real and that maybe it was FOR me. Just toying with this notion, felt like a campus visit to the right school; I immediately and deeply knew I belonged. And now, I am enrolled!

Love is waiting around every corner because, indeed, it is ubiquitous. The things that occur are making me more loving. I am learning that every day and in every way there is availed to me an opportunity to feel loved FIRST, inherently and primarily. Mercifully, this education demands no perfection, but requires only the willingness to be gently reminded. And thanks be to the heavens, because as I grow, I often find my old defenses to be stalwart and automated, but there—right THERE in the midst of my smallness, love provides an unfaltering invitation to dilate.

The oldest, truest lesson. If I seek to affirm my peril, peril will be all I perceive. But if I affirm love, love is abundantly affirmed to me.

And as every teaching brings me back to the same well, I am reminded of the refrain of an oft sung spiritual I learned as a child—now a mantra of loving surrender:

I’m gonna lay down my burdens down by the river side,
I won’t study war no more.
I ain’t gonna study war no more
I ain’t gonna study war no more
I won’t study war no more.

Headshot photo credit: Kristi Sherk.