What can I say that is going to give you hope?
I had to take a day from all the research and writing for PhD studies to observe and reflect on the changes happening and try to make sense of it all. Observing the changes taking place in the atmosphere over these past days, weeks, months … and wondering what I could say about it. I sense so much bubbling up … and with the numbers growing in terms of folks testing positive for Covid-19 and the number of people dying, there is a growing panic in the atmosphere. There is a desire for us to get back to normal life … to get back to _______. To get back to _______.
Back is not a word that we should be using. It’s getting forward.
It’s going forward.
What can I say that is going to give you hope as you walk forward?
Pilgrimage is the word that comes to mind.
We are walking on a path.
Those who are on the path are obvious. They are seeking. They are on a quest. They are curious. They are questioning. They may be sitting in silence. But no matter how you’re walking, we are all going in the same direction.
The folks that you walk alongside of, or end up sitting next to, are folks who talk to you, who say something like “Namaste” or “Blessed Be.” You know what I mean’ they say something to let us know we are walking in the same direction.
If we step off the path, we step into the energetic chaos where no one is saying, “Namaste” or “Blessed Be.” And in that energetic chaos, no one is smiling and/or wishing you well. It is crazy-making and energy draining.
But if we step off the path, we can always jump back on the path into the tunnel of grace — this Pilgrimage that we are on has a 1000 year tunnel of grace, and it has been walked by countless other pilgrims on this walk toward God or the Divine. We are walking this pilgrimage of faith with a prayer in our hearts, toward transformation.
Folks, this is a walk of transformation — a walk of hope. We are walking for a reason because there is something in our life we want to change. Something is happening that makes us go on this search, looking for some kind of grace to take our lives from one state to another and it is filled with hope.
Many of us started this walk … this pilgrimage with some prayer of desperation for transformation … a desperation for change and . . . we are convinced that by slowing our lives down, by leaving behind the way our life was, that by the time we get to the end of this pilgrimage, something in our life will have changed.
Some of us are walking the path with only prayer in our heart — prayers of suffering and loss and death of our loved ones, friends, colleagues, clients, to COVID-19. Some of us are walking with a prayer for our relationships that have become ruptured and maimed because of the election.
I say to all of you WELCOME!
You will heal and then you will need to teach others what it means to walk in faith. I am walking with you right now. We are all walking the same way. To have faith doesn’t mean you have to be religious, it means we believe in something greater than ourselves is governing our life. And so I walk in this direction with the knowing that there is something greater than myself in life. I think this is how we have to walk — toward the direction, toward something greater than us governing our life — no matter what we see in this present moment. No matter how difficult is is — in this present moment — no matter how uncertain it looks in tie present moment — something greater than us is governing our life.
Heaven is not a logical place, and life is not logical.
When we are in crisis, when something happens in life that we cannot explain, and we want it explained. We tend to think how can God do this? What is it about us that we think the nature of the Divine is logical … is reasonable, is a legal structure that organizes life around our schedules and our needs?
Yes, it is true we need to pay the rent or the mortgage, feed the children. But the Nature of the Divine, the miraculous Divine is also a mystical one that is unmeasurable and illogical and cannot be explained and this is the characterological nature of the Divine.
The task of caring for each other … of feeding each other … of looking after each other is OUR task. This is what we are going to be called to do. How we care for each other in this transition is actually going to test us. It is not going to test the Divine; it is going to test us.
Are you going to give someone hope?
We cannot walk past each other and not give each other a prayer or a sense of hope. This is what we must do for each other. Because there but for the grace of God go you and — I.
So as we are all walking down this road together, we have to think that at any time, we may need to share a meal with somebody, we may need to hold some pain for somebody, or listen to someone and we need to be prepared to do that.
I know folks who are walking terrified because they cannot pay their rent or buy food for their children. I know folks who are terrified becasue they discovered that their spouse has been having an affair. I know the stories. You have stories too.
We have been in preparation with ourselves and with this whole journey of transformation for a long time to discover our capacity to influence our reality. To create a world that maybe we’ve envisioned, but we haven’t put our shoulders into or gone after with the force of our soul — we can now.
If you ever imagined stopping and starting again, this is what we have the opportunity to do — the opportunity has been given to us. It didn’t come in the way we thought, but if you look at history, it comes through history: WWII comes to mind. WWII flattened the world and it started again.
We have the opportunity to make the world a more humane place, where we look and say we need healthcare for everybody; we need a more balanced system; we need a more honorable government; we need people to come first. We don’t get to this place without a crushing transformation.
And we also need to know how to awaken that power in ourselves. As overwhelming as it is for all of us, at the same time, it is in this experience that we discover how truly empowered we are. We don’t discover how to heal until we are sick. We don’t discover how ingenious we are until we need that. We don’t discover that we really influence our reality until we need to do that. This is your moment for discovering your power.
So when you don’t know what to do to get through the rattling of your fear, start to consider ONLY what is in front of you, what is within you and learn to listen to guidance that is going to direct you in ways you have never considered before.
Blessed Be,
Paula
