(Inspired by Richard Rohr)

There comes a time in every life when our usual strengths no longer carry us—
when the mind loses its grip,
the heart grows tired of rehearsing old stories,
and the body itself whispers, No more.

We call these moments crisis, heartbreak, bad timing, bad luck.
But sometimes—if I am honest—they are simply 
the limits of my bandwidth, the place where everything
I have relied on finally admits it cannot take me any farther.

Richard Rohr calls this a spiritual law:
We must be led to the limits of what we can do,
or we will never discover the deeper Source
waiting beneath what we think of as “me.”

I have lived long enough to know the truth in this.

The ego is a loyal guard dog—
it will insist it can handle anything
long after the roof has blown off the house.
It resists surrender with a kind of panic,
certain that letting go will mean disappearance.

But pain - real pain - the kind that brings us to our knees—
teaches a different truth.
It shows us that descent comes first,
that humility is not humiliation,
and that losing control is often the only doorway
into a more spacious life.

Rohr defines suffering as “whenever you are not in control.”
How simple, and how devastatingly true.

I think of all the times life defeated me
just enough to soften what needed softening:
the endings I didn’t want,
the rare moments when my body whispered, 'not today,'
the daughters who had to walk their own labyrinths,
the friendships that dissolved when I stopped over-functioning,
the years I wrote alone with no audience,
the choices that exiled me from versions of myself
I had outgrown without knowing.

Each time, I reached the end of what my ego could manage,
and each time something quieter stepped forward—
a deeper intelligence,
a steadier presence,
a realism not rooted in cynicism
but in finally seeing life as it is.

We don’t choose these thresholds.
They arrive on their own calendar.
But if we allow them, they become initiations.

Because when we are no longer in control,
we are no longer pretending.
And without the performance,
something honest enters.

Call it God, call it grace, soul, Source, the ground of being—
what matters is not the name,
but the way it feels:
like relief,
like truth,
like the world finally widening
after years of narrowing ourselves to survive.

I used to think strength meant holding everything together.
Now I know strength is what rises
after everything has fallen apart
and you are still here, breathing, awake, real.

The limits of my bandwidth were never limitations.
They were thresholds—
the place where the real story finally begins.

~ ocean road, bj 2025