Call me an anomaly, but I love this time of year in the Northern Hemisphere. The biting cold, the darkness that descends well before the workday has even begun to wind itself to a close: the irresistible pull to stay at home, light the fire, and hibernate.
This time of year is also for me a time of deep reflection, a chance to ruminate on the year that is swiftly passing, and an opportunity to hold my family and friends and the world at large in my heart, and ask, how are we doing?
Well, this year, I have been really struggling with that question. I have felt the weight of suffering in the world, as so many of us do. But this year feels particularly acute. It’s as if the regular cloak of armor I hold around myself just to survive on a daily basis has been breached, and the suffering and grief and pain and injustice of the world is pouring in, like molten lava, burning me from the inside out. I see it everywhere. I feel it everywhere.
As I write this, I have a very dear family friend who in a few short days is heading out to Minnesota to The Mayo Clinic to be with her brother as he receives treatment for a brain tumor that is invading his frontal lobe and wrapping around his optic nerves. A carefully calculated treatment protocol will be initiated, involving two separate neurosurgeries and critical follow up care. They will be there several weeks, through Christmas and into the New Year. While I can think of many heart wrenching ways to spend the holidays, this certainly makes the top of the list. I feel afraid for my friend and her brother, so like family to me. I want desperately for everything to be ok for them. And on the heels of my fear I feel rage: Why, God? Why so much suffering? For them, for others, for the world at large? What is the point of so much pain?
It seems that my questions are not all that unique. Since the dawn of human self-awareness, others, it turns out, have been asking the very same thing to whatever deity they’ve got going at the time. Mystics, ascetics, medieval anchoress’, philosophers, poets, playwrights, sculptors, artists, physicians, you name it. They’ve all bought stock in the existential question of why.
The rage I feel spins me into a feeling of vengeance, and I begin to feel overcome with an intense urge to hold God or Source or the Universe or whatever your version of a higher power is accountable for his/her/its sins. I want to grab God by the scruff of the neck, throw him into the mosh pit and slam him to oblivion for doing such a lousy job of it here on Earth. How about it, God? I roar. When we meet someday, You are going to wish You never made me. And so goes the inner railing, and the fist pumping towards the sky. It makes me sympathize with Lucifer’s defection.
Yet, despite all the ranting and raving and fist pumping, when the beast has moved through me, when I am empty, exhausted, quiet and spent, when there is simply no one left to turn to and no where left to go, I find that instead of seeking God or Source or Brahman or whatever, it is Source or God that seeks me out, gently beseeching me to remember who I am, and that who I am is inseparable from the very entity I believe I am railing against. It is me. I am that. We are all that together. I am Source and it is me that turns towards me. I am the person in the mirror. This world, our world, is my responsibility, our responsibility, one choice at a time. We are the Creator. We can also be the Destroyer.
This year, in my despair, I found myself doing something I rarely do: I started to pray. I don’t consider myself religious. I was never raised with any orthodox religious background. We didn’t go to church as a family. I don’t read the Bible, although I know a lot about it. I do practice Christmas, and I hold with great reverence the 12 Holy Days from Christmas to the Epiphany, knowing and feeling that this is a time of deep, personal communion with Source. And I do meditate, which I believe is a form of prayer. But the idea of actually getting on my knees, clasping my hands together in supplication, and begging with all the humility of my being for help has up until this point just been a source of background noise for me. Now I have read somewhere that God answers prayers in four ways: yes, no, later and you’ve got to be kidding. Up until this point most of my prayers have been the garden-variety of the “you’ve got to be kidding” type: Please God, let my kid win this football game so he’s not in a bad mood later or Please God, help me win the lottery. But this year was different. This year, I got on my knees, I clasped my hands together, I bowed my head, and I prayed fervently. I prayed to know God. I prayed for hope. I prayed for understanding. I prayed for healing for all who are struggling, with poverty, injustice, racism, bigotry, illness, misunderstanding, war and pain in general. I prayed for our country and its well being. I prayed for my family. I prayed for my dear friend and her brother. I prayed for my pets. And I prayed for myself. And I prayed that God would help me make peace with this great mystery we call life, and the incessant question of WHY.
I am still praying. So far, I have received two sources of inspiration. I wouldn’t quite call them answers, but close enough to bring some solace.
The first, was an impulse to revisit a 21 day meditation series led by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra called Hope in Uncertain Times. I did this, and it helped immensely.
The second was to take a deeper dive into Ted Loder’s work. Ted Loder was a graduate of Yale Divinity School, and spent over thirty years as a senior minister of First United Methodist Church in Germantown, PA. He was also an activist, and a strong advocate for social services and diversity, equity and inclusion long before it was fashionable. I was familiar with some of his poems from his book, Guerrilla’s of Grace: Prayers for the Battle. But I had never investigated his other works. In my search, I found a book called The Haunt of Grace. The title immediately spoke to me. In it, Loder shares a collection of some of his sermons. They are beautifully written and deeply thought provoking. They were an injection of hope for me and helped to ground me in a sense of faith and trust in the mystery that none of us can really know but that all of us are living.
In one particular essay, called New Rules for Engagement, Mr. Loder encourages the reader to “not be afraid”. He argues that nearly the whole meaning of Christmas and the gospel can be distilled down to one simple phrase: Do not be afraid. In this piece, he quotes a poem by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, called The Invitation, which I found deeply moving:
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bare the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, “Yes”.
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
To stand in the center of the fire and not shrink back. It’s a call to our integrity. It’s a call to our authentic power. It’s a call to our gratitude. And it’s a call to our freedom. Will you stand in the center of the fire with me? Will you not shrink back in fear as the flames lick your feet? Will you stand like a warrior, perhaps wounded, but ready to defend to the best of your ability all that you hold Holy and dear? And when the flames grow ever higher, and begin to kiss your face, can you let it burn you from the inside out, letting the searing pain of it make space for something new? Can you do that for yourself? For others? For the world? And when it all feels like it’s just too much, that you cannot bear another moment on this planet, would you be willing to do something you may never have done before? Would you be willing to risk a prayer?
There is a famous quote from Maya Angelou:
“ Hope and fear cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Invite one to stay”.
For Wendy and Roy, with love.
I will stand in the fire with you always.