For most of my life, my true self—the quiet occupant sitting by the window—operated behind an accommodating mask. Whether it was navigating the dynamics of my early years or spending forty years in the ministry pastoring four different churches, fitting in and being what my environment needed me to be was an automatic, intuitive art.

It was a way of being one with the current. But for a long time, it happened unconsciously.

It is only in the last ten years that a deeper consciousness has awakened regarding the intention of my life and the intention of life for me. I see now that the primary cultural mask—doing what I was told to do and being who I was required to be—was something I accommodated myself to perfectly. Yet, beneath that automatic adjustment lay a deeper, unexpressed truth: my primary interest has always been simply to be who I am and do what is mine to do.

Bringing this dynamic into consciousness changes everything. When the accommodation is no longer just an unconscious habit of survival or keeping the peace, but a deliberate, conscious alignment with the flow of the moment, the friction simply dissolves. It produces a profound sense of relaxation, peace, and harmony between myself and my life.

To become one with the flow both consciously and intuitively is to realize that the stream was moving all along. Now, waking up inside the current, the journey becomes an intentional dance with the Tao—striving consciously to be one with our own deepest, unconscious grace, right here through the very requirements and duties of our lives in the world.