Here is what I’ve found…
Our human experience is buffeted and tossed, bruised, and banged; and somewhere along the line all of us, every precious one of us is damaged. You. me. No one escapes. If you think otherwise, you’re a master of denial. And, while that might be a pretty good strategy for a while, in the long haul it will betray you.
Instead, I invite us all to not turn away from the hurt, the hurts.
And from that to take a next step.
The reason these hurts become a great hurt living a coiled serpent within us is simple enough. Our sense of these hurts rises out of our intuitions of wholeness and the fact of our separateness.
Wholeness.
Just about everyone, maybe everyone, has some body knowing we are connected, totally connected each of us with everyone and everything else. Why is this so? I don’t know, although I have opinions. What I do know is that our sense of this wholeness comes to us unbidden.
What really matters is how our dreams are invaded by this deep knowledge of our source and home, our radical interdependence. Our quiet moments proclaim it. Instances of grace intrude it into our lives, singing the angel song of deepest connection.
Our bodies know the connection.
And, so, I invite the critical step of turning our hearts to noticing this unity. It is critical.
And, even that isn’t enough.
There is that waking moment, where we are separate, where babies die and old people starve to death, where each and every one of us has experienced loss and longing, some harder than others, but none escapes. In this realm all of us are damaged goods. And, somehow, damaged or not, each separate thing, each of us, is precious beyond saying. That, too.
Separateness.
We must not turn from that, either.
And so, I invite the step of turning our hearts to noticing the separateness. It is critical. Absolutely critical for a whole life.
And then, perhaps, another question comes to us.
How can both be true? How is it that we’re both separate and one?
A circle to square, no doubt.
Gives one pause. I hope.
And another invitation to move beyond self and other.
We notice these two things. And out of that wonderment the great invitation sung to us from before the creation of the heavens and the earth. The words and the music proclaim a connection deeper than two or one.
A healing way can be found as we explore the connection.
The dance of the many and the one.
And that other place.
In the Jewish tradition there is something called tikkun olam, healing of the world. I love that line, the healing of the world. I find this work of healing the world and everything within it is our calling as we’re born into the world of joy and sorrow, of unity and separateness.
It is found when we don’t turn away, but don’t rest in that spot, either.
Continue to open one’s heart, despite the siren song to shut down.
The path is through opening.
And more opening.
As we follow it all the way.
As we find the place to stand, to live, to love, and to die.
Within the ring of fire…
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