One of the captors of the young hunter names him “Almost.”
The raider has homed in on this hunter’s mental and emotional state. There’s a part of him that just hasn’t quite come to the fore yet.
As this new year gets solidly underway, many of us, reviewing the past twelve months, and perhaps our lives up until 2007, undoubtedly resonate with the idea that we are an “Almost.” There’s something in us that longs to burst forth into fullness of expression, but that we sense we hold back.
When I speak of a “fullness” that seeks to emerge, I’m not referring to what the world usually thinks of as success. For instance, a star, superhero, or tycoon in our culture is looked upon as successful. Yet most such individuals are in fact “Almosts,” just like humans in general. Inside, they really don’t know and believe in themselves any more than the rest of us.
In his book The Presence Process, Michael Brown says that divine Presence knows “no order of difficulty.” In Apocalypto, the captured hunter is being propelled by an intention that he has set, which will conquer every difficulty. Because of this, he doesn’t accede to the gory fate that awaits him.
The hunter has a wife, a child, and a baby about to be born, who are trapped in a hideout in his village. Instead of succumbing to the raging fear that threatens to engulf him, he focuses his intent.
There is nothing “Almost” about him now. This is his beloved wife and children who are at stake!
As a result of his clear intent, the hunter experiences a remarkable rescue in the form of an eclipse that tells his captors the gods have been appeased and no more sacrifices are needed. As The Presence Process teaches us, the universe has an amazing way of working with us when we set our intention in line with the divine Presence at our center.
Although the hunter is spared from being sacrificed, he’s still slated to be destroyed. This will take the form of brutal “sport,” as he’s set free and then chased and attacked. But with powerful intent, he conquers his fear, outstrips his limitations, and lives to save his family.
The young hunter is no longer an “Almost.”
The Presence Process invites us to “show up” in our lives—to become more than an “Almost.”
In each of us, showing up will take a different form. It may include what the world calls success, and it may not. One thing is certain, it will be in the form of something that allows us to love people by bringing our giftedness to them. We will be a blessing in their lives.
To show up, we have to allow our fears to evaporate. The reticence, the self-doubt, and the putting ourselves down that we so readily engage in have to go. For as a wise person wrote long ago, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment” (I Jn. 4:18, NKJV).
As with the young hunter, it’s often a crisis that precipitates in us an awareness of the infinite Presence at our center. We are forced to face our fear, because there is no other way forward. We finally wake up to the immense love that is our birthright.
But it doesn’t have to come to this. If we pay attention to the gentle nudging of our deepest self, we can awaken to our fullness without having to be pushed to our breaking point. This is what Michael’s book invites us to do.
None of us has to be an “Almost”—and the world is waiting for us to gain a new sense of ourselves, that we might bless it with our Presence.
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