When the thing you most fear catches you by surprise,
strong-arms and wrangles you into that twisted place of pain, what shape of a
grimace takes over your smile?
You feel anger, righteous and justifiable, well-thought out
and sane, albeit in the face of insanity. And this rock solid idea is the glue
that holds you to this earth when it is too much, when the television news pulls
you into the foursidedscreen and you become one with, walking alongside, the
tragedy. You move into the
seeming-solidity of an idea: the stronger the emotion, the more extreme the
stance; the greater the fear of losing our beloveds or ourselves, the more
utterly we stomp our feet into the cement of a polarized position.
But can you move to the more vulnerable truth? Are you
willing to go into that scorching summer desert and run your fingers over the
dust of what was? Can you make the commitment to let the rage breathe its last exhalation, to let breathe instead the raw tender beating thing that is the true life
animating your ire?
Will you pause for a while there and watch what happens?
For it is in this wilderness; it is in the waiting; it is in
the leaning into the agony of not knowing; it is in the being out of control of
others; it is at the sheer, sharp, unrelenting edge of the deadly precipice
that we find our shining clarity. Our direction. Our hope. Our aligned and
loving and enduring path. Our the.world.needs.it.we.were.born.into.it purpose.
Others’ tragedies are not the platform on which we can stand
up our good and heartfelt messages for all the world to see with the expectation that something will be any different.
It is only in the crumbling back into the raw and perfect
beauty of our vulnerable selves that we find our rootedness and our strength to
endure the long walk ahead into the unknown, to afford ourselves and the world
the sumptuous gift of our soft belly, to dare to reach out in compassion not
just to those we call victims but to those on whom we focus blame – those who
perpetrate, who maim, destroy, light on fire or cloister. It is from the
honesty of our horrific, dark night in the wilds that we emerge into the light
of action that will change the world, that will rightsideup the fallen things,
that will guide us as we take – step by step – the journey deeper into
spiritual living.
It starts within the pulsing guts of each one of us.
All blog images created &/or photographed by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted. Please circulate images with photo credit: "©2014 JenniferJWilhoit/TEALarbor stories. AllRightsReserved."
