Week Fifty-One - Words won’t do...

The grief is unbearable and collective.    It’s etched on the face of our nation.   Inescapable.  You don’t even have to pick up the newspaper, turn on the television, or hook up with social media.  It’s present in the shell-shocked pain etched faces; at the gym, Christmas parties, at the grocery store, in our workplaces. Conversation is strained because “words won’t do”. I remember a special coworker wrote that in a sympathy card years ago,  when my husband passed away.  He said, “My heart is with you, because words won’t do.” That’s stuck with me all these years. 

 This vibration of the worst kind of suffering and loss is so profound, it seems to permeate any moments of creativity, my sleep, and unexpected tears well, easily.  It’s especially overwhelming as I touch my lips to the foreheads of my three precious grand-daughters and the thought passes, there are grandmothers who will never get to do that again in this earthly life.  I see it again, as my daughter hears three voices of angels, singing along in Christmas song, and turns her face to hide the sorrow.  I see it when my son-in-law holds his girls for an extra few minutes when he walks through the door, and they greet him with squeals of “Daddy!”  I feel myself slipping into  it when I  look at the Christmas tree and my eyes get lost in imagining the incomprehensible.  Along with it there is immense gratitude for those kisses, voices, and squeals, but some survivor’s guilt kicks in at the loss of these other young children, beautiful blessings, that have been so unfairly torn from this world and their loved ones. 

Any massacre is horror... An unimaginable nightmare come true, but when it involves the purest, most vulnerable members of a society,  it is especially evil.  It robs the place in your soul reserved for hope, joy, tenderness, and innocence.   This is the kind of burglary that often  things are never found again.  Lost forever.  Trust, security, faith, innocence.  How do these mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, relatives, and friends ever rediscover joy again when they are suffering so?  Where will healing come from?  Gun control, mental health reform, living in a bubble with armed security everywhere?  When will compassion, empathy, unselfishness, ethics and love, be put into the curriculum of studies?  These skills can be taught and mirrored too.   And, the media needs to be in the front row when these lessons begin. 

Perhaps through this darkness of the soul... maybe this  is where everyone will find their way back to a place of light again, inside the heart of other’s immense pain. Joining hands and hearts, and leading one another out, into the Light of Love and understanding. And change.  Badly needed change. We are connected.... When will we get that?  Nowhere was it more apparent than in the memorial service for the victims of Sandy Hook. One God, Allah, Higher Power, Source, Holy Name, Om, Supreme Being..... drawing us together to grieve and comfort one another in the loss of His greatest glory. 

In the words of Henry Beecher Stowe, “Children are the hands by which we take hold of heaven.”  It is through the personalities and abundant gifts these beautiful little angels brought into this world, 6-7 years ago, we will find our God’s healing and be able to feel heaven again.   

My heart is with you. 

Week Fifty- WooHoo to Opening up the Guest House....

I’ve been trying to recapture my zen.  Some bad things have happened recently, and I was shocked to see how quickly it all slipped away.  I labeled myself the wicked witch of the East because I sure melted into a puddle of yuck these past few weeks.  Ugliness didn’t simply inch its way back into my life again.  It came roaring in, leaving me gasping for breath with an intensity I hadn’t known before.  Rage...... is a new emotion for me.  Apparently, I’ve managed to bury that one deep under layers of other emotion or maybe even an addiction or two.  The end result was just an overall feeling of unwellness, mentally for sure, but surprisingly physical as well.   Anger, revenge, judgement, and then old tapes that said it was wrong to feel this.  The feelings of guilt that arrived were just an attempt to douse the out of control flames burning brightly.  Those were getting fueled by every abandonment, rejection, loss, and tragedy suffered in my lifetime.  Where did it all come from?  Good grief. 

Then, I  labeled myself as defective, once again.  A phony claiming to have a few good qualities that somehow had left the building, or were they ever even really there?    Character defects glaring back at me and taunting me with, “See... we ARE still here. You haven’t changed one bit.”  The voices in my head were cruel and out of control.  It didn’t help that I was virtually on my own in my anger.  People get frightened when you express that much emotion, and tend to back off in fear, get snitty back, or worse yet, try to minimize what you are feeling for you. Compassion was sorely absent, but then again, I wasn’t acting like the person they had come to know.   Perhaps they were afraid it was contagious too, and some of the venom would land on them.  I really felt abandoned (again) and zapped... powerless.  On some level though, I not only knew the anger was justified, and although it didn’t FEEL healthy in my body, I knew it was actually spiritually healthy for me to experience the emotion of it, fully.  It owned me for awhile.  I wouldn’t have ever welcomed it, but into about the second or third week of this process, I did recognize, it was teaching me something.  It was showing me, as frightening and negative as it was, I needed to own it. Once we own something, its power diminishes and we begin to get ours back.  My power came back just enough to be able to turn it over although my trust level with my Source was at an all time low.   I knew that I had to do that. The difference in turning it over this time was I did it for me.  No generosity of spirit, no attempts for folks to like me again because I was happy and fun... it was a case of pure selfishness.   I just didn’t like feeling and living in it.  Most of all I intuitively knew, in turning it over to my Source, that would be the only way I would be able to ever see rightly because  my Source is only capable of love. In love, my Higher Power guided me to this:   

The Guest House

by Rumi

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Woo-Hoo to feelings! My guest house is fully open to them now.  Because I know there is a permanent Tenant here Who is better in tune than I am with what I need for my spirit to learn and grow.   And, wow... how timely for this to happen at the end of my year of woohoo. I thought so much of my year would be comprised of woo-hoo’s that reflected fun times, adventures, new endeavors.... It’s looking more like woo-hoo to the unexpected visitors, who have lit my path and changed me  this year.  I think I will dedicate the last two weeks to acknowledging them and expressing my gratitude for the role they have all played in my life.  WooHoo!