The Great Thaw
We suffocate the voice inside.
It isn’t just a voice; it is an alarm. It sounds when the life we are living no longer matches the soul we carry. For most of my life, I have treated this voice as an intruder. I ignored it. I kept busy. I suffocated it with the steady hum of scrolling, eating, and the “mind-wandering” of a man who is afraid to be where he is.
This morning, I sat outside after dropping the kids off. It is still cold here in Sweden—below freezing in the early hours. But the sun was out, a quiet reminder that the thaw is here. The great thaw that melts the ice to remind the soil it is still alive.
With a heaviness in my chest, I looked inward. I didn’t ask for anything. I simply said: Thank you for being here. Thank you for reminding me who I am. Thank you for reminding me what matters.
A flash of memory surfaced—the last few years. Life has a way of drifting in unintended directions. There is a misalignment between my daily “doing” and my deepest “being.” There is still a part of me that craves recognition. It will do anything to be seen and everything to avoid being rejected. It is a part of me as old as my earliest memories.
I thought of the faces I’ve met online—the friends made, the journeys shared. I saw the people whose lives I’ve touched and who, in turn, changed me. I am grateful for them. But a question hung in the air: What was it all for? Here I am, seemingly further from the goal I set out to reach when I first embarked.
Then, an imagined conversation with a Sage.
I spoke of my gratitude—for my wife, my children, the food on our table, and the roof over our heads. It is more than most of the world has. I am deeply, truly grateful. Yet, deep down, there is more. There is a part of me that is starving to be heard.
I accepted ordination into the priesthood thinking it would be an extension of my soul’s work. Instead, I realized I had entered a system that often upholds and reproduces the very structures of oppression it claims to heal. Instead of a Gospel of liberation—a turning toward unity and transcendence—I found questionable moral exhortations and walls designed to keep us locked in.
We have turned faith into a transaction. We are told that unless we stay inside the building, unless we accept a specific personage of Jesus, we cannot be “saved.” But salvation isn’t a trade; it is a relationship to the world, to ourselves, and to each other. Christ’s act was to show us that compassion is the realization that we are one. True religion is the social organization that brings us back to who we are—and further into who we can become.
I asked my heart: What do you want? I asked those age-old parts of me that I had abandoned in my attempt to appease a broken system. The initial recognition of the “title” felt good, but it turned me away from myself.
The answer came back clearly: “Write. You must write—not for the sake of recognition, but because it is how you see the world. Writing is the act of becoming yourself. When you bring forth what is in your heart, you change, and the world changes with you. Your vocation is to help others have the courage to turn away from the noise, from the misalignment, and recognize their unity. To write, you must live in your heart’s desert. That is where you will discover not only who you are, but what the world is. Titles do not matter. Ordination matters not.”
It has been a while since I wrote a poem. Here is an attempt to capture the sentiment—the beginning of a book I carry inside.
The Lone Tree
“Know me,” you cry.
“See me,” you say.
Turn off the noise and listen.
You turn outward, thinking the world will find you.
You turn to the crowd, thinking they hold the answers.
But the world is a distraction.
Empire seeks to colonize your thoughts,
To chain your heart and lock your mind in a cage of eternity.
See, the heart is heavy with wisdom.
It is the vault where the secrets of the universe lie.
Turn inward and you will discover more than your longing;
You will find the mysteries of brotherhood, the secrets of freedom,
The rhythm of life.
Look at the lone tree standing in the field.
You think it stands alone,
But its roots are a map of connection.
In its conspicuous solitude, it speaks
To the grass, the soil, and the air.
The isolation is an illusion;
The connection is the fabric of its existence.
So, my friend, do not fear the quiet.
Solitude is not the same as being alone.
Stop chasing the recognition of those who do not know themselves.
You are tethered to the Divine.
To see this is to allow yourself to change—
And to bring light into the world you inhabit.
Do not let Empire turn your soul into a trophy.
Let your heart be a beam of light in the gray.
A stream of divinity entering the world
To break the grip of the darkness,
And unlock the door to the dungeon.
If this post inspired you and moved your heart, consider sharing it with a friend.
If you would like to support my work, consider subscribing or upgrading to help me continue doing this.
❤️