dailydatewithgod

Cats are funny creatures.  One of the ways they show love is by clawing at something.  Whether its your arm or the couch they use their claws, potentially harmful to whomever is on the receiving end to demonstrate affection.  It would be one thing if the claws only came out when they were fighting but many a cat I have held would claw on to me for dear life to show me how much he or she cared.  Perhaps it is the demonstration of an animal love versus a spiritual love.  Don’t get me wrong, I think animals are capable of many kinds of love.  Nature, interestingly has built-in this way of clinching at something to show a connection.  Even children when they latch on to you.  Is it because they are afraid of letting go or because they are claiming ownership to what they know is safe? The real question is how does clinching show up in our lives as adults?  What sense of love and safety do we grasp at?  And do we clinch it because we are afraid of letting go or because we want to show the world where our heart lies?  A further question is do we get used to clinching and forget it is good to let go or acknowledge there are times when we will need to let go.  I attended a funeral the other day and the man who died was clearly loved.  I did not know the man but I know his eldest son.  Just before the burial at the end of the funeral service the family gathered around the man lying peacefully in the coffin.  The we closely knit to each other and you could hear them crying.  But it was the gut wrenching crying and sobbing coming from his wife of many years that seem to catch in the throats of all those who were witnessing. It was as though the clinching to the love of this man had all of us by the throat.  I can’t imagine walking through life that closely with someone for so many years only to realize that one day he would no longer be there.  I would be clawing like a cat claiming my stake on the life of such a man.  How do we go from clinching to our reality whatever it may be to show our connection to it yet recognize by letting go that it is not who we are?  Our heart knows the way and more than anything our heart knows when to hold and when to let go.  The more we know our hearts the more we can rely on the core of who we are to determine if now is the time to clinch or the time to release.