I sit in court on the witness stand while the opposition tries to discredit me.

“In 2008, did you misread the well meter by thousands of gallons?” the opposing attorney asks.

I call on the Beloved. “Yes,” I say. My foot bobs and my voice shakes, but I sit tall and hold my head high.

“In 2009, did you make a math error in your calculations?”

“Yes.”

And so the hearing goes as the opposition offers up my mistakes over the past five years. They are not many, but the attorney, a weak-chinned man with beard stubble, casts them in the darkest light possible.

Fortunately, our attorney has coached me. I am not to defend myself, nor even try to explain. Any explaining can come when he questions me later. Then I may tell how at the time, I owned and corrected each error.

Still, I am aware of the reflection—how in life we are continuously bombarded by our shortcomings. My tendency has been to fight, to defend myself. But I now know that is not necessary. The love is within me, and so when I make mistakes, I am forgiven.

I am love.

Even as I sit in the witness box, bombarded by questions, I feel the flame of my true self burning within. This is a power that can never be doused. It never waivers, and when I remain with my Beloved, it only burns brighter.

Months ago I wrote about our well association’s court victory over a contentious neighbor in The Divine Court. After that, the woman I’ll call Dee filed an appeal to a higher court, and so here we are.

The courtroom is larger, with high ceilings, microphones we speak into, and an overhead projector that casts the exhibits onto screens scattered about. The judge wears a robe and sits on a dais—his expectations loftier and more precise. But my goal is the same: It matters not whether we win or lose—I must stay centered in my Beloved.

As I leave the witness stand I walk in a cadence with my mantra, which I chant inside, feeling the love that I am.

The opposing side takes the stand to tell her story. Dee says that all of the conflict has arisen because of poor water pressure in her house. Due to this, and a litany of other reasons, she has refused to pay for well repairs and expenses over the past five years.

Her accusations are wild and unreasonable. She says we use magnets to alter her meter readings. She declares that we vandalize her property by throwing mice in her bathtub and rats on her land.

Over the years I have come to see this well and the water that comes from it as a symbol of material love. The ongoing fight reflects my own inner war. Each part of me believes that it has to battle to get its portion of the elixir. My mind, my emotions, my physical body, each attempt to steal and hold onto the power—the love—what little is available from the well.

A great shift has come, though, as I have truly turned my seeking inward toward Divine love. Like a tsunami It drenches me. I float and dive down into its wonder. I swirl, tumble, and marvel at its sweet bubbles and cool rivulets running across my skin.

Best of all, when I remain in this Ocean of Love and Mercy, my mind, emotions and physical body quiet. They stop fighting and surrender. What previously were many parts, become one great whole of love.

A gentle smile stretches across my face.

After seven hours of testimony, the judge sets forth his ruling. He sides with us on major points, but doesn’t declare a winner. Instead he asks us to take three weeks to attempt to settle the case. We are to responsibly share the well and its expenses, while determining a way for everyone to have adequate water pressure.

As we pack up our files, my mind is frustrated. It wants victory. But when we leave the court, I glimpse the blue Sangre de Cristo Mountains out the window, shadowed by stunning thunderheads, and see reason in the judge’s determination.

A win would have gotten us the money we are owed, but we would remain in the same quandary, with a part who refuses to cooperate. The judge’s order directs Dee to engage with the whole, to attempt to find a solution, something she has been unwilling to do.

I know my role in this quest for harmony. It is not to try to make the various parts come together—that is mind’s solution, and all these years it has failed.

My job is to love my Beloved self, to swim in the great ocean from which harmony births. I do my best to actuate love in the world. But what manifests is not my call, nor is it my business. All in the material world is an effect of my higher causes.

Truly, with the Beloved, I can be happy even as this well conflict plays out in the lower worlds.

Rather than fight for love, my task is to surrender yet more to It.

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