Tag: prayer

When?

I have not written for a long time. I have had little energy for writing. My heart has been ripped in two by multiple losses and griefs. I imagine probably yours has, too. When will this end? When will I figure out what this means? When will I stop crying?

I know there are no firm answers. As Rilke advises, “We must live the questions.” An RN who works in an ICU wrote to me about the hypervigilance that she had worked so hard to let of as a trauma/abuse survivor, but that has returned with tears as both bane and protection in her work with Covid 19 patients. The following is a reflection that I wrote back to her:

Tears are good things (as you know). They are cleansing, exhausting (pushing us toward sleep), and actually help rid our bodies of some toxic chemicals. Don’t stop them when they come.

You are experiencing what is normal and adaptive in an abnormal situation.  You are not crazy, bad, abnormal.  And I wish I could predict for you and others what the recovery will be from this PTSD . . . but I can’t.  Life and our experience of recovery is in the future and we are headed toward a future that (at this time) we can no longer envision.  It isn’t clear.  We can only live in the present with trust (also called faith) that we are not alone, that there is a Loving and Healing Presence that walks with us through life and death.  

We are part of a larger reality that is rebalancing itself in a shocking way (to us) in order to survive.  We as humans have been consuming and using up what we needed instead of caring for and protecting it for the future.  The earth has reached a tipping point where the balance has shifted drastically and what we are experiencing in this rebalancing is different and completely unfamiliar.  It won’t go back to what was.  What will come we don’t yet know.  But those who survive this (probably not those of us over 70) will adjust to and settle into that new reality.  Who will be left it is not ours to know.

What I think is important now is to be present with as much compassion as we can muster — compassion for others and also in large measure for ourselves.  It is compassion/empathy/service in these times that differentiates genuine humanity from the monstrous evildoers.   You are one of the compassionate ones.

I offer you a prayer from our prayerbook that I just read: This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever shall be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. If I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words and give me the spirit of Jesus.

I will be repeating this prayer today . . . for you, for my sister in hospital, and for me.  

Gratitude

Grateful eyes look at each thing as if they had never seen it before and caress it as if they would never see it again. ~ Br. David Steindl-Rast

I write on the day after the latest school shooting. You may find it odd to be writing today on “gratitude.” I find no joy in the meaningless deaths of children at the hands of other children via deadly weapons that should be used only in war or self defense. Yet such tragedy makes me even more grateful for this day of life and the awareness of it as precious gift.

This recent health challenge magnifies my awareness of this moment, this day. I had slipped back into taking for granted this day and this life and fell into imagining that I had at least a decade (probably more like 2 decades if I’m honest) to enjoy the pleasures of not having deadlines or work projects that required major effort. My initial response on receiving the challenging news was anger that it was likely that I had been given a new “assignment” that would take away from my newly discovered pleasures (reading fiction, learning quilting, enjoying walks, etc.) and replace them with unwelcome “deadlines” and scheduled “must appear” events.

I still can feel angry — at fate and I suppose at God — if I allow myself that wasted energy. But more often now I notice with gratitude the small things that I might have previously passed over without much of a thought. I’m still not great at recording my gratitudes — a spiritual practice that I want to become more regular in. But I often acknowledge what I notice to myself or aloud with a “thank you, God”, or even just see how many people I can offer a grateful smile and “hello” to as I go through the grocery store or on my walk.

I am awed today at the prayers and love that others have offered me in this time. It usually comes via text or email. Sometimes a gift of homemade soup and a book left on my porch or a card with a hand written message delivered by the mailperson. And with each message or gift I return a prayer for that person and feel a deep gratitude that I (who have been a person who often has felt her “otherness” and awkwardness) am loved and held in prayer. I don’t feel deserving of such gifts and prayers — but I am aware that it is not about deserving but about accepting what comes (with gratitude) and not keeping it to myself.

And not keeping it to myself is a fruit of gratitude, I find. Gratitude creates an abundance of feelings . . . of safety, love, joy, astonishment, wonder, connection. The abundance is not to be held close nor stored but to be shared. So I share, perhaps in overly simple ways, but offering gratitude in writing or via a phone call, in my own prayers for others, in offering a smile to each person I see, in writing cards of gratitude for persons who have touched my life.

And I have a long, long list of people that will keep my pen busy for as long as I can write . . . I keep a rainy day file of notes or letters that I have received over a lifetime from persons who have taken time to let me know something that has touched them. They inspire me to respond to others with a “rainy day” message to let them know how their lives have touched mine.

Gratitude . . . I am grateful today for the chill in the air that drives birds to our feeder where Mr B (my kitty) and I watch with wonder. And I am grateful for my body . . . its strength, its resilience, and the ability it gives me to move through the world. Thank you, God, for all your gifts.

Doors

In the universe, there are things that are known, and things that are unknown, and in between, there are doors.

~ William Blake

I am at the threshold of a door between what I had known and expected and what is unknown to me. Actually, I may be one step beyond that threshold. I am dealing with a very unexpected challenge that is requiring hope in the midst of fear, present moment awareness rather than future planning, and willingness to step back from being in charge to allow others to help me and pray for me and love me.

I vacillate between overwhelm with the messages and kindnesses of friends and family and even strangers who are praying and caring for me . . . a welcome overwhelm that feels like a warm, comforting safe place to dwell. And there is also the overwhelm from medical facts, statistics, and the physical experience of today’s technologies . . . an overwhelm that feels unsafe and fearsome.

I am keenly aware that I am not alone in this experience . . . it is a human experience and a spiritual pathway that so many others have taken and are taking or will take at some point in their lifetime.

The quotation that “caught” me this morning says there are doors between what we know and what we do not yet know or cannot know. I would change Blake’s word to “doorways”. Doors require opening to walk through, and there are some doors like that in our lives that we need to choose to open or leave closed. Images of doorways are different to me — they are openings that are already open. Some doorways we may choose to walk through or not. Some doorways we may not notice and therefore we walk by. Other doorways offer multiple openings and force a choice between one thing and another.

The doorway in my life today offers no choice . . . there is only one portal to enter without choosing or desiring this path. I cannot know what awaits on the other side. What will be revealed (in part or whole) when I step through onto the path? Adventure? Challenge? Affirmation? Ending? Healing? Love? Purpose? Call?

I am not a stranger to this doorway, though. I have walked through a similar doorway several times in my life and I have found a deepening of my spirit, an expansive space inside where empathy for others (and myself) dwells, experienced a humility that reminds me that a greater Being is accompanying me in love. In each experience, I have grown as a person, a therapist/healer, a spiritual guide.

While I am walking through a doorway onto a path that is new and unknown, gratefully, I am not alone. You who read this are part of my circle of witnesses. Thank you.