Morning peace arrives with first light. Love and strength shelter me as I sit in repose and allow spirit to flow. Thoughts arise that tremble my heart and crease the folds of love that feel tender and bruised. I observe; I move on. Breathe in, breathe out, and sit in this moment in time, this place of resonance, that awakens to all.
“Empathy is the faculty to resonate with the feelings of others. When we meet someone who is joyful, we smile. When we witness someone in pain, we suffer in resonance with his or her suffering.”
-Matthieu Ricard
“As our nation has become more divided, there is a resonance for a message to bring people together.”
-Martin Luther King III
“I say that a myth is a story which has particular energy, mythic resonance. I always say that a myth is a tear in the fabric of reality through which all of this spiritual energy pours.”
Today, I sat to write a poem for my weekly post. It is not happening. My brain is tired. I have run out of words to edify, describe, inspire.
For the past two months, I have been preparing for two sermons that I will be offering at Common Ground Community UMC , our local worship community. Tomorrow, Sumday the 18th, at 9:30 Central Time is the first. The two part series is on suffering, transformation, and compassion. The seocnd part is Sunday the 25th.
If you are interested, I will post a link to their archives and you can pick it up later. This post may be arriving too late for the livestream but it is here.
https://commongroundumc.org
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
The path of suffering is a lonely path. Affliction arises; story is created around the pain. Once entered, it is difficult to depart as thoughts dance in a loop—diminish our resolve, suck our energy, our creativity, our love. A point of choice awakens in our seeking: we find a door that offers an exit from this diminishment of heart and mind, or we stay locked inside, feeling tied to thoughts that wound the soul. Are we willing to look within the pain? Endure the weight of what is asked of us? Bear the needed change required to release us? Now, that is the mystery. That is the unknown. Our response dictates our tomorrow as we pray for you and for me: May we all be freed from our suffering.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.”
– Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”
I have been reading a translation of an Egyptian Gnostic creation myth written somewhere between the 3rd and the 7th century. All cultures attempt to answer the bigger questions of the world, why and how are we here. These excerpts translated by Marie-Louise von Franz, captured my imagination:
“And the God laughed seven times. When he first laughed, light appeared, and its splendor shone through the whole universe…. The God laughed Seven times. Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha.” “Then He laughed for the seventh time, drawing breath, and while he was laughing, he cried, and thus the soul came into being. And God said, thou shalt move everything, and everything will be made happier through you.”
Laughter: energy radiated out. Spirit moved forth. Vulnerable. Open. Loud. An expelling of power. A roar. A release of stress and anxiety.
Born out of laughter. Born out of joy. Born out of the depth of a belly laugh. What if we believed and embodied that awareness, lived believing that we are creators, that we move everything, and everything will be made happier through our one life? What if we were told of our innate goodness rather than our innate sin. How would we be different? How would we engage each other differently believing that not only of ourselves but of the other?
We don’t have to look far to also understand the First Noble Truth of Buddhism, suffering is an innate characteristic of existence, as we know it in our aging bodies, our own frustrations with life not going our way, our inability to fulfill our cravings. In the depths of poverty, hunger, fear, rage, and war, we see suffering. But what if we were raised to believe in our power to relieve suffering, to bring joy, happiness, and relief while creating, life is made happier through me, through us, through you.
Would we cease to look upon each other as stranger? As one to go to war against? As one who takes from my abundance? Despite life’s heartaches could we realize that through this presence in each other’s life we birth something new?
We have within us the ability to laugh at our own existence. Our foibles, our ineptitude. Our sheer lunacy while riding through space on Mother Earth.
As she was thrust out of her warm cocoon
into a world of lights and harsh sounds
she held deep within her the
memory of the sound of laughter.
She opened her mouth and cried out
then gazed into the eyes of the one
who will remind her of her power,
through her goodness and kind heart
to heal, to love, to sing the world alive,
to create, and to be light for another.
Then, she opened her mouth again and,
she laughed.
“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”
Proverbs17:22
“Life is a miracle. We, all of us are creator beings. We are the joyful choice makers.”
Sakshi-Chetana, from Laughing Buddha: The Alchemy of Euphoric Living
“How did the rose ever open its heart and give to this world all of its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being, otherwise we all remain too frightened.”
Hafiz
“And God said, thou shalt move everything, and everything will be made happier through you.”
From Patterns of Creativity Mirrored in Creation Myths by Marie-Louise von Franz, pp 135-37 and quoted in Soul An Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
On Going Resource List: Reading for Mind and Heart
The Gene Keys: Emracing Your Higher Purpose by Riuchard Rudd
Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Inform Us by Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Energy Speaks: Messages from Spirit on Living, Loving, and Awakening by Lee Harris
Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create an New One by Dr. Joe Dispenza
The Women by Kristin Hannah
Cosmogenesis: An Unveiling of the Expanding Universe by Brian Thomas Swimme
The Mastery of Love, Don Miguel Ruiz
Change Your Thoughts—Change Your Life: Living the Wisdom of the Tao, by Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, by Mirabai Starr
The Four Agreements: A Toltec Book of Wisdom by Don Miguel Ruiz
Mindfulness and Grief by Heather Stang
How We Live Is How We Die by Pema Chödron
The Bhagavad Gita, Translated by Eknath Easwaran
St Francis of Assisi: Brother of Creation by Mirabai Starr
Wild Wisdom Edited by Neil Douglas-Klotz
Earth Prayers From Around The World, Ed by Elizabeth Roberts & Elias Amidon
The Tao of Relationships by Ray Grigg
Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom by John O’Donohue
Unconditional Love and Forgiveness by Edith R. Stauffer, Ph.D.
Keep Going: The Art of Perseverance by Joseph M. Marshall III
Art & Fear by David Bayless & Ted Orland
Quantum-Touch by Richard Gordon
The Van Gogh Blues: The Creative Persons Path Through Depression by Eric Maisel, PhD
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith by Kathleen Norris
Forever Ours: Real Stories of Immortality and Living by Janis Amatuzio
Personal Power Through Awareness by Sanaya Roman
Violence & Compassion by His Holiness the Dahlai Lama
Teachings on Love by Thich Nhat Hanh
Devotions by Mary Oliver
To Bless the Space Between Us by John O’Donohue
Meditations From the Mat by Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
The House of Belonging: poems by David Whyte
Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Faraway Nearby by Rebecca Solnit
Soul an Archaeology Edited by Phil Cousineau
A Path With Heart by Jack Kornfield
Listening Point by Sigurd Olson
I Sit Listening to the Wind by Judith Duerk
Dancing Moons by Nancy Wood
The Soul of Rumi, Translations by Coleman Barks
Keep Going by Joseph M. Marshall III
Arriving at your own Door by Jon Kabat-Zinn
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
The Hidden Secrets of Water by Paolo Consigli
Conquest of Mind by Eknath Easwaran
Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t) by Brene Brown
Practicing Peace in Times of War by Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
On Death and Dying by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
Unattended Sorrow by Stephen Levine
Joy in Loving, Mother Theresa
The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche
Let Your LIfe Speak by Parker Palmer
Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Essence of the Upanishads by Eknath Easwaran
Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chodron
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Medicine Cards: The Discovery of Power Through The Ways Of Animals by Jamie Sams and David Carson
