Standing at the edge of an abyss is no way to contemplate the coming new year. Yet that is how my heart feels, as though the earth has shaken beneath our feet and split asunder. I am reminded of a conversation in a television show of my youth —a teenage African-American tries to talk to his white English teacher —he says she’s got “white folks’ blues.” She expects the world to be good and just and fair and therefore is distraught when faced with a different reality, whereas he has spent his whole life without those illusions and knows life is a struggle. A friend shared recently that he has chosen to pick up some Lenten disciplines again (despite it not being Lent) as a way of caring for his soul so as not to fall into depression or give in to despair. Jack Kornfield says in BUDDHA’S LITTLE INSTRUCTION BOOK, “Whatever we cultivate in times of ease, we gather as strength for times of change.” Animals gather what they need to survive the winter and so must we. Whether you have ever felt times of ease or not, whether you feel the world’s heartbeat becoming colder or not, the time has come for gathering our strengths where we may.
For those of us with a hunger to know the truth, painful emotions are like flags going up to say, “You’re stuck!”… such uncomfortable feelings are messages that tell us to perk up and lean into a situation when we’d rather cave in and back away. When the flag goes up, we have an opportunity: we can stay with our painful emotion instead of spinning out. Staying is how we get the hang of gently catching ourselves when we’re about to let resentment harden into blame, righteousness, or alienation. It’s also how we keep from smoothing things over by talking ourselves into a sense of relief orinspiration…With practice, however, we learn to stay with a broken heart, with a nameless fear, with the desire for revenge. Sticking with uncertainty is how we learn torelax in the midst of chaos, how we learn to be cool when the ground beneath us suddenly disappears. We can bring ourselves back to the spiritual path countless times every day simply by exercising our willingness to rest in theuncertainty of the present moment—over and over again. ~ Pema Chödrön in COMFORTABLE WITH UNCERTAINTY
So we must learn, in this twisted age, that the ultimate therapy is to identify our own pain with the pain of others, and then band together to resist the conditions that create our common malady…As we learn to see our own plight in the lives of our brothers and sisters we will begin to find health. Therapy involves identifying and building communities of concern. Only so can we heal ourselves. ~ from 40 DAY JOURNEY WITH PARKER PALMER, edited by Henry F. French
No wonder the prophet weeps yet –
We begin again but not innocent…
And we feebly watch for you and wait.
Teach us how to weep while we wait,
and how to hope while we weep,
and how to care while we hope.
~ from “Teach Us How To Weep” in AWED TO HEAVEN, ROOTED IN EARTH: PRAYERS OF WALTER BRUEGGEMANN