The Truth I Discovered From a Leaping Gerbil

(No gerbils were harmed in the writing of this blog)

When I was 8 years old, my family had two gerbils that lived in a cage just outside my bedroom. They were an entertaining pair and so it was quite sad when we discovered that one of them had passed away while I was at school.

It wasn't long before my parents felt really sorry for the cute little gerbil that remained behind, friendless and alone. One might think the obvious solution was to buy the gerbil a new friend, but my parents had something else in mind. "We are going to set him free," they announced with excitement to the sad and confused faces of their three kids.

Surely mom and dad knew what was best, so we all skipped along behind the cage as it was carried outside to the wooded surroundings of our backyard. With appropriate drum roll and circus ringmaster flair, my father announced the opening of the cage door with a dramatic flip of the latch.

Although we had expected an equally dramatic gerbil, launching out of the cage, it was not what we saw. It sat motionless for a bit...staring at the open door. It took some time, but then one...and then another...cautious and calculated steps were taken toward the opening.

Once standing outside the cage door, the gerbil sniffed the fresh mountain air for the first time and nervously surveyed its new surroundings. The exact moment it realized it was free was obvious to us, because it leaped high into the air.  One jump...an even higher second jump...then with the third and highest jump of all, and to the family's utter shock, the gerbil fell dead to the ground.

Now let's just say that this was not what my parents had envisioned for this experience.

The Truth I discovered from a leaping gerbil is that we often find ourselves living life in a mental cage of our own creation. So much so, that even when we see an opportunity to step out into a life of freedom, we are hesitant and afraid. But if we are willing to follow our primal spiritual calling to freedom, bliss awaits us just on the other side of the door

You see, some might say the gerbil had a heart attack on that third jump and subsequently died. But I say the gerbil transcended its physical body right at the peak of that jump, the peak of its own revelation to its true identity.