On a recent dive trip to the Carribean, I learned the importance of going with the flow, focusing on the heart, and opening to perspectives differing from my own as an important part of the spiritual path. Spiritual Path meaning a path toward deepening in love, peace, and compassion.
During this extremely polarized period in American politics between
Conservative and liberal thinkers, we can find ourselves experiencing
Strong antagonism toward human beings believing in views opposing
Our personal beliefs and sentiments.
On my trip, I was assigned to room with a woman scientist who did not believe in global warming, who blamed every challenge the USA faces on liberals, who believes that the New York Times is devoid of credibility, and who was comfortable with the way banks and cooperations manage their power. She is conservative in her perspective. She belongs to the religious right. I do not share her views.
She triggered strong reactivity inside of my body. I saw that I was emotionally attached to my "open" perspective. I noticed that to live in love and to create a harmonious relationship that we needed to meet in our hearts and not in our heads. My yoga teacher, Swami Satchidananda used to say that people will find it easier to meet in their hearts. Minds tend to focus on differences.
Acknowledging that ultimately we are ONE in spirit, I tried to breathe, to stay open and to listen to my roommate.
Trying not to shut down and tune her out, became my daily practice for the week we were together. Seeking to be present to my roommate instead of invalidating her, I chose to appreciate her good sense of humor, her generosity and her considerate actions. We lived in peace. We enjoyed our time together. Agreeing to disagree and setting boundaries when I felt that I needed personal space, we had a supportive and loving relationship sharing a room together.
Our world is suffering tremendously from the inability to rise beyond polarities. When spirit comes into form there are automatically two Entities. On the simplest level,there is form and no form.
As form divides there are two and then form grows into the infinite. Spiritual vision honors the forms while maintaining the awareness of the one spirit dwelling in all form, in all that exists.
Rev. Supriya Swerdlick
Monday, May 14, 2012
Thursday, April 26, 2012
You Are Loved
This Sunday I will be preaching at the church my family and I attend. I have done this a few times and feel honored to have the opportunity to speak to a large group about the things of my heart and my heart's walk with God. I have entitled my talk, "You are Loved."
A few weeks ago, I attended a service at a different church where the minister mentioned that all minister really only have one, or maybe two, messages, which they give over and over in different ways. This resonated with me, and I immediately asked myself: what is your message?
The message I feel most strongly has been given to me by Spirit is just this: you are loved. It is the message I have learned and re-learned, received and been challenged, by my entire life. It is also the message I feel most profoundly in contact with as a teacher. I have so many minor and occasional major travails in my own life, trials I pass through without as much grace as I wish, and daily struggles that I do not handle with the ministerial perfect love and calm I dream I might continuously possess! But when I go inside and really look at myself, I find one area in which God has truly trained and taught me, where I have slowly year by year gained insight and ability, and that is this: you are loved.
Several months ago, I went through an experience I had never encountered before, and came up against some actions by others that some people would label "evil." Certainly they were intended for harm and a great deal of anger, misunderstanding and resentment came my way, striking close to my heart. I processed these events on many levels, constantly seeking a higher way of viewing the situation (and constantly finding lower ways too!), and got through it all right. However, many weeks later, I still felt a residual sense of being somehow deserving of the hatred and unkindness that I was shown.
One night, just as I was going to bed, I had the realization that I was struggling, as I have in the past, with a sense of being unloved. The people who showered me with anger really didn't love me, and it threw me back, just the littlest bit, into a place of doubt and lingering unworthiness. As though God were speaking directly to me, I got this message: "You need to have a deeper experience of God's love for you, not an intellectual understanding, but a felt event."
I keep meditating on this idea. It is possible, particularly for people like me who do a great deal of reading and teaching, to get concepts mentally, to be able to speak them and read them. To know them through and through, in the world's great scriptures and in the best popular motivational speakers. But all of us must continually seek out, invite, and respond to the lived reality of mental knowledge. Love, after all, is not simply a nice thought, and the truth that each of us is a precious, perfect, whole, and complete child of God is not only a healing idea, but an experience that can bring us to a greater sense of knowing our value and belovedness.
When we know that, we are with God.
I will be sharing more of these thoughts and stories on Sunday. Leave a comment if you would like information about the service!
Rev. Sam Wilde
A few weeks ago, I attended a service at a different church where the minister mentioned that all minister really only have one, or maybe two, messages, which they give over and over in different ways. This resonated with me, and I immediately asked myself: what is your message?
The message I feel most strongly has been given to me by Spirit is just this: you are loved. It is the message I have learned and re-learned, received and been challenged, by my entire life. It is also the message I feel most profoundly in contact with as a teacher. I have so many minor and occasional major travails in my own life, trials I pass through without as much grace as I wish, and daily struggles that I do not handle with the ministerial perfect love and calm I dream I might continuously possess! But when I go inside and really look at myself, I find one area in which God has truly trained and taught me, where I have slowly year by year gained insight and ability, and that is this: you are loved.
Several months ago, I went through an experience I had never encountered before, and came up against some actions by others that some people would label "evil." Certainly they were intended for harm and a great deal of anger, misunderstanding and resentment came my way, striking close to my heart. I processed these events on many levels, constantly seeking a higher way of viewing the situation (and constantly finding lower ways too!), and got through it all right. However, many weeks later, I still felt a residual sense of being somehow deserving of the hatred and unkindness that I was shown.
One night, just as I was going to bed, I had the realization that I was struggling, as I have in the past, with a sense of being unloved. The people who showered me with anger really didn't love me, and it threw me back, just the littlest bit, into a place of doubt and lingering unworthiness. As though God were speaking directly to me, I got this message: "You need to have a deeper experience of God's love for you, not an intellectual understanding, but a felt event."
I keep meditating on this idea. It is possible, particularly for people like me who do a great deal of reading and teaching, to get concepts mentally, to be able to speak them and read them. To know them through and through, in the world's great scriptures and in the best popular motivational speakers. But all of us must continually seek out, invite, and respond to the lived reality of mental knowledge. Love, after all, is not simply a nice thought, and the truth that each of us is a precious, perfect, whole, and complete child of God is not only a healing idea, but an experience that can bring us to a greater sense of knowing our value and belovedness.
When we know that, we are with God.
I will be sharing more of these thoughts and stories on Sunday. Leave a comment if you would like information about the service!
Rev. Sam Wilde
Friday, April 13, 2012
An Easter Argument
While my husband and I drove to church for the Easter morning service, we had an enlightening argument. He wasn't particularly looking forward to the morning's festivities and explained to me how much he doesn't like Easter. I, on the other hand, had already been to an earlier service and couldn't wait for the next one.
"Easter is the most difficult Christian holiday," he told me. "The story is completely unbelievable and yet you're asked to accept it--required to accept it. And when have you ever seen a person rise from the dead?"
"Easter is the most accessible, most translatable, most encompassing of the Christian holidays," I told him. "It is the best, truest, most liberating story of all."
So we were at an impasse, not that I didn't see his point. The simple and literal Easter story, that Jesus, a man who lived 2012 years ago, was killed and three days later came back to life, does require a rather magnificent leap of faith. (Although many have been willing to make it.) But what is the heart of the message? What is the meaning behind a death and a resurrection?
To show that ultimately life triumphs over death, love over hate/fear, and goodness over evil. Nothing, no thing, no person, no power, no group of people, no event, no torture, no trials, no cruelty, can ever be the victor against Divinity, God's presence with us, Emmanuel.
This is the essence to me of the story. We also see it played out in the great resurrection of the season, in Spring's profusion and vigor. Of course this is no accident as Easter was originally a pagan holiday. But the fundamental belief at the core of Easter is one at the core of every great religious tradition and this is it: there is only one power, all present, all knowing, all powerful, that is Love or God or Good.
Most people, including those in spiritual and religious traditions, have a hard time with this concept. They believe in evil, in the devil, in overwhelming bad, or they may doubt that good and love are equal to the negative forces in the world. They point out countless examples to prove this point, from the Holocaust to hurricanes to the nightly news. And I don't mean to say that these things aren't facts. I mean to say that they aren't true powers.
Before you write me off as crazy, let me explain. Can you remember the last time you felt angry? Felt hatred? Sadness? Fear? Did those feelings arise from feelings of power? When you felt them, did you feel powerful? After you felt them, did you feel powerful?
I can see this in my children, in my friends, and, of course, in my self. I have never heard a person say, "I hate that woman so much. Hating her feels awesome. I'm filled with strength and power when I hate her. " We dip into the negative emotions because we feel afraid, vulnerable, or profoundly powerless. Is a child who goes into a school and shoots his friend actually powerful? Or is he an example of the most broken, empty, powerless person of all?
For me, the radical, joyous, life transforming message of Easter resides in the fundamental truth that there is ONE power and that power is all good. Did Jesus die and rise again? We can't know for certain. But whether he did or did not, the end result has been the same, hasn't it? Because of the countless people throughout history who have believed an unbelievable thing, this crazy story has been kept alive, and for whatever ill it has brought, it has also brought good. We have to separate the power of the message, a redemptive missive of Love, from the structure of religion, the culture of our own religious pasts, the wounds of religion in our life--how it has hurt us, let us down, left us unfulfilled, and so on--and choose to believe in ideas that will increase the presence, reality and potency of good in our own lives and in the life of the world. Isn't that what we want when we bemoan the existence of evil? Put your eyes on the Sun, even on a cloudy day, and remember where true strength resides. It is not a matter of one great power, and one lesser power. There is one power and then there is the absence of power.
This is the understanding that filled me with joy that morning, and every morning, though the day be gray. We all of us have to rely, at least sometimes, on truths we cannot immediately see, especially when our faith is the very thing that brings us joy and gives us hope. How do we know it is real? Because once we believe in it, we have it! And it is real within us and therefore our very real contribution to the world.
Rev. Sam Wilde
"Easter is the most difficult Christian holiday," he told me. "The story is completely unbelievable and yet you're asked to accept it--required to accept it. And when have you ever seen a person rise from the dead?"
"Easter is the most accessible, most translatable, most encompassing of the Christian holidays," I told him. "It is the best, truest, most liberating story of all."
So we were at an impasse, not that I didn't see his point. The simple and literal Easter story, that Jesus, a man who lived 2012 years ago, was killed and three days later came back to life, does require a rather magnificent leap of faith. (Although many have been willing to make it.) But what is the heart of the message? What is the meaning behind a death and a resurrection?
To show that ultimately life triumphs over death, love over hate/fear, and goodness over evil. Nothing, no thing, no person, no power, no group of people, no event, no torture, no trials, no cruelty, can ever be the victor against Divinity, God's presence with us, Emmanuel.
This is the essence to me of the story. We also see it played out in the great resurrection of the season, in Spring's profusion and vigor. Of course this is no accident as Easter was originally a pagan holiday. But the fundamental belief at the core of Easter is one at the core of every great religious tradition and this is it: there is only one power, all present, all knowing, all powerful, that is Love or God or Good.
Most people, including those in spiritual and religious traditions, have a hard time with this concept. They believe in evil, in the devil, in overwhelming bad, or they may doubt that good and love are equal to the negative forces in the world. They point out countless examples to prove this point, from the Holocaust to hurricanes to the nightly news. And I don't mean to say that these things aren't facts. I mean to say that they aren't true powers.
Before you write me off as crazy, let me explain. Can you remember the last time you felt angry? Felt hatred? Sadness? Fear? Did those feelings arise from feelings of power? When you felt them, did you feel powerful? After you felt them, did you feel powerful?
I can see this in my children, in my friends, and, of course, in my self. I have never heard a person say, "I hate that woman so much. Hating her feels awesome. I'm filled with strength and power when I hate her. " We dip into the negative emotions because we feel afraid, vulnerable, or profoundly powerless. Is a child who goes into a school and shoots his friend actually powerful? Or is he an example of the most broken, empty, powerless person of all?
For me, the radical, joyous, life transforming message of Easter resides in the fundamental truth that there is ONE power and that power is all good. Did Jesus die and rise again? We can't know for certain. But whether he did or did not, the end result has been the same, hasn't it? Because of the countless people throughout history who have believed an unbelievable thing, this crazy story has been kept alive, and for whatever ill it has brought, it has also brought good. We have to separate the power of the message, a redemptive missive of Love, from the structure of religion, the culture of our own religious pasts, the wounds of religion in our life--how it has hurt us, let us down, left us unfulfilled, and so on--and choose to believe in ideas that will increase the presence, reality and potency of good in our own lives and in the life of the world. Isn't that what we want when we bemoan the existence of evil? Put your eyes on the Sun, even on a cloudy day, and remember where true strength resides. It is not a matter of one great power, and one lesser power. There is one power and then there is the absence of power.
This is the understanding that filled me with joy that morning, and every morning, though the day be gray. We all of us have to rely, at least sometimes, on truths we cannot immediately see, especially when our faith is the very thing that brings us joy and gives us hope. How do we know it is real? Because once we believe in it, we have it! And it is real within us and therefore our very real contribution to the world.
Rev. Sam Wilde
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Food for the journey
I wanted to share a few of the places I go to online for spiritual sustenance. When you have time, you might enjoy exploring some of these.
Byron Katie--a woman who teaches a useful, practical, non-religious method of getting to "truth," there are some great demonstrations in video form on the website.
Bishop Shelby Spong--retired Episcopal Priest who is a leader in re-inventing a Christianity that is liberal, alive and meaningful.
Christian Science Lectures--and the Daily Lifts--set aside your assumptions about Christian Science and enjoy some of these lectures. For whatever its faults, Christian Science is one of the few places you will find Agape or Love as the absolute substance, message, core, and doctrine taught.
Unity--a wonderful continuation of work begun more than a hundred years ago, progressive Christianity that serves people of all faiths.
Joyce Meyer--if you can bear her awful politics and get past some of the language, she is an incredible preacher with a gift for practical teaching that people even outside of mainstream Christianity find inspirational.
Charter for Compassion--the work of Karen Armstrong, when you visit the website read the actual Charter. It is a moving, impressive, truly interfaith document.
I'd love to be led to teachers and sites that support your spiritual walk--so send a comment if you have ideas!
blessings and love,
Rev. Sam Wilde
Byron Katie--a woman who teaches a useful, practical, non-religious method of getting to "truth," there are some great demonstrations in video form on the website.
Bishop Shelby Spong--retired Episcopal Priest who is a leader in re-inventing a Christianity that is liberal, alive and meaningful.
Christian Science Lectures--and the Daily Lifts--set aside your assumptions about Christian Science and enjoy some of these lectures. For whatever its faults, Christian Science is one of the few places you will find Agape or Love as the absolute substance, message, core, and doctrine taught.
Unity--a wonderful continuation of work begun more than a hundred years ago, progressive Christianity that serves people of all faiths.
Joyce Meyer--if you can bear her awful politics and get past some of the language, she is an incredible preacher with a gift for practical teaching that people even outside of mainstream Christianity find inspirational.
Charter for Compassion--the work of Karen Armstrong, when you visit the website read the actual Charter. It is a moving, impressive, truly interfaith document.
I'd love to be led to teachers and sites that support your spiritual walk--so send a comment if you have ideas!
blessings and love,
Rev. Sam Wilde
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Make Sense?
Driving the other day, I passed a car with this bumper sticker: Make love, not sense.
Of course, I instantly loved it, though I have no idea what it was meant to mean, it spoke to me. In fact, it set me off on an interesting meditation about love and sense.
I think most every great religion and spiritual tradition, with the possible exception of Buddhism, makes love without making much sense. My husband and I have been discussing how interesting it is to have a Mormon running for the US presidency, when the story and the scripture of the Church of Latter Day Saints is really a quite unbelievable sort. Many of us think the the whole Christian story is a bit senseless, far out, and slightly irrational.
I can certainly remember sitting in church as a girl and looking at some of my mother's close friends who sang in the choir. These were professional, composed, established, intelligent, educated, and achieving women. I used to wonder: they don't really believe Jesus was born of a Virgin, do they?
Most religions tell some tall tales. There's the wonderful story in the Torah about the three men who are thrown into a fiery furnace, and not one is harmed in anyway. And let's not forget Jonah in the belly of the wall, or the parting of the red seas.
Do these make sense?
Not at all. Do they make love?
Spiritual belief, or faith as some call it, does require a child's willing, creative, imaginative mind. When we believe in what we cannot see--that God is good when our life is hard, that healing is possible when someone appears ill, that the world is filled with Divinity when all we hear on the radio is war, hate, and death--we delve into the heart of the mystery, into the gift of this koan (if it can be called that): make love, not sense.
However, I do think, with study and time, meditation and prayer, conversation and reflection, the laws of God's world and ways of working show a more profound and transformative sense--and then we begin to look at the world that does not operate out of love, and think: how senseless!
Sometimes, we must be willing to lay aside our thinking head and use our thinking heart, open the eyes and ears of our heart where the indwelling divine resides and see the world a little bit more like Spirit sees it. Will we always make sense by the standards of the world? Probably not--but then is that what we want? To fit in with a culture that adores speed, gets rich on violence, and diminishes love to a Hallmark card on Valentine's day?
I don't. Which is why I laughed to myself with delight when I saw that message. What a good reminder! Let's all go make love and not worry so much about the sense!
Rev. Sam Wilde
Of course, I instantly loved it, though I have no idea what it was meant to mean, it spoke to me. In fact, it set me off on an interesting meditation about love and sense.
I think most every great religion and spiritual tradition, with the possible exception of Buddhism, makes love without making much sense. My husband and I have been discussing how interesting it is to have a Mormon running for the US presidency, when the story and the scripture of the Church of Latter Day Saints is really a quite unbelievable sort. Many of us think the the whole Christian story is a bit senseless, far out, and slightly irrational.
I can certainly remember sitting in church as a girl and looking at some of my mother's close friends who sang in the choir. These were professional, composed, established, intelligent, educated, and achieving women. I used to wonder: they don't really believe Jesus was born of a Virgin, do they?
Most religions tell some tall tales. There's the wonderful story in the Torah about the three men who are thrown into a fiery furnace, and not one is harmed in anyway. And let's not forget Jonah in the belly of the wall, or the parting of the red seas.
Do these make sense?
Not at all. Do they make love?
Spiritual belief, or faith as some call it, does require a child's willing, creative, imaginative mind. When we believe in what we cannot see--that God is good when our life is hard, that healing is possible when someone appears ill, that the world is filled with Divinity when all we hear on the radio is war, hate, and death--we delve into the heart of the mystery, into the gift of this koan (if it can be called that): make love, not sense.
However, I do think, with study and time, meditation and prayer, conversation and reflection, the laws of God's world and ways of working show a more profound and transformative sense--and then we begin to look at the world that does not operate out of love, and think: how senseless!
Sometimes, we must be willing to lay aside our thinking head and use our thinking heart, open the eyes and ears of our heart where the indwelling divine resides and see the world a little bit more like Spirit sees it. Will we always make sense by the standards of the world? Probably not--but then is that what we want? To fit in with a culture that adores speed, gets rich on violence, and diminishes love to a Hallmark card on Valentine's day?
I don't. Which is why I laughed to myself with delight when I saw that message. What a good reminder! Let's all go make love and not worry so much about the sense!
Rev. Sam Wilde
Monday, February 20, 2012
Patient Practice
When my daughter was a toddler, she had a favorite hat. She couldn't put the hat on herself, so she would walk around the house practicing. Over and over she'd take the hat and attempt to press it onto her head. It took far more coordination that she had at first--to open the hat and place it on widely and pull it down. However, given her extreme determination and constant practice, she soon became proficient at the task.
This sort of persistent and patient perseverance children display regularly, learning to walk or talk or use a fork or spoon. One might even say they do this practice graciously, given the dozens and hundreds of times they may make attempts and fail.
Meanwhile...in our adult world things are different! I often see an adult attempt something new once. If she fails, she may not give up, but she generally makes a conclusion about her abilities based on this failure. This comes up often in yoga when a new student attempts a pose, or when any student attempts a new pose. Most adults will not completely give up a practice, however, they will think, or sometimes say, "I'm not good at that. I can't do that. This isn't for me."
Every skill requires practice. Even a skill in which we have a natural ability. I have never found yoga particularly "hard." In fact, it came rather naturally for me. Yet it also demanded a regular, persistent practice, especially in certain postures where I was more limited.
Spiritual practice is no different. Prayer, healing, positive thought, intercession, transformation--all require practice, repetitive, sometimes full of failure, practice. Wherever we want to grow spiritually, we can. But we must cheerfully and determinedly, take the task like that hat my little daughter held and keep at it, with no sense of personal insecurity or imperfection. We don't want to take our spiritual imperfections personally; if we take them to heart, we risk giving up, or drawing a false conclusion about ourselves.
Each one of us is God's beloved child. Each one of us contains all Good and only Good, the capacity to do remarkable and unimaginable Good. Each one of us has a divine gift, that through practice and time, becomes a powerful, unique Light in the world. In the middle of the mess of daily and domestic life, in the midst of the thunderous negativity of media, news and events globally, we lose sight of the glory within us, that does not belong to us, yet is ours.
I think of my little one who never asked, "Mama, what's wrong with me? Will I ever be able to put on my hat? Why is this taking so long? Maybe I'm not meant to wear a hat...maybe I'm not as good as people who wear hats."
It may take a long time (and it may not). Keep patiently practicing your spiritual gifts, keep seeing yourself as the best version, hold in your mind a picture of your Highest self. Remember whose child you are, a child of the Divine Mother Father, and reflect on the fact that the apple cannot fall far from the tree!
Rev. Sam Wilde
This sort of persistent and patient perseverance children display regularly, learning to walk or talk or use a fork or spoon. One might even say they do this practice graciously, given the dozens and hundreds of times they may make attempts and fail.
Meanwhile...in our adult world things are different! I often see an adult attempt something new once. If she fails, she may not give up, but she generally makes a conclusion about her abilities based on this failure. This comes up often in yoga when a new student attempts a pose, or when any student attempts a new pose. Most adults will not completely give up a practice, however, they will think, or sometimes say, "I'm not good at that. I can't do that. This isn't for me."
Every skill requires practice. Even a skill in which we have a natural ability. I have never found yoga particularly "hard." In fact, it came rather naturally for me. Yet it also demanded a regular, persistent practice, especially in certain postures where I was more limited.
Spiritual practice is no different. Prayer, healing, positive thought, intercession, transformation--all require practice, repetitive, sometimes full of failure, practice. Wherever we want to grow spiritually, we can. But we must cheerfully and determinedly, take the task like that hat my little daughter held and keep at it, with no sense of personal insecurity or imperfection. We don't want to take our spiritual imperfections personally; if we take them to heart, we risk giving up, or drawing a false conclusion about ourselves.
Each one of us is God's beloved child. Each one of us contains all Good and only Good, the capacity to do remarkable and unimaginable Good. Each one of us has a divine gift, that through practice and time, becomes a powerful, unique Light in the world. In the middle of the mess of daily and domestic life, in the midst of the thunderous negativity of media, news and events globally, we lose sight of the glory within us, that does not belong to us, yet is ours.
I think of my little one who never asked, "Mama, what's wrong with me? Will I ever be able to put on my hat? Why is this taking so long? Maybe I'm not meant to wear a hat...maybe I'm not as good as people who wear hats."
It may take a long time (and it may not). Keep patiently practicing your spiritual gifts, keep seeing yourself as the best version, hold in your mind a picture of your Highest self. Remember whose child you are, a child of the Divine Mother Father, and reflect on the fact that the apple cannot fall far from the tree!
Rev. Sam Wilde
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Struggle
Many years ago I attended a Unitarian church where the minister always signed her letters to the congregation, "Yours in the struggle." I was thinking of this phrase the other day in the midst of a very difficult situation. We encounter many struggles in our lives, small and large, daily and ones that continue through our life-cycle. This particular struggle for my family was quite big.
I began to think about how we, any of us, make it through genuinely hard times. I also began to think about that line, "yours in the struggle." I started to ask, "who is ours in the struggle?" And, "who is with us in the struggle?"
I began to imagine God, or the Divine, speaking that line: "I am yours in the struggle." There is a sense of belonging and connection and absolute loyalty. It may be true that when we really undergo hardship we feel alone or disconnected from the Good, but it is not a truth. Suffering can lead us to feel abondoned by the Source of Peace, but nothing is closer to us in a crises than God. Many people have found this to be so; in fact, many people do not come to a spiritual understanding of life until they undergo a hardship.
It makes me think of two of my most favorite lines in the bible: "All thing work together for good for those who love God" (Romans 8:28), and from the very end of Genesis: "You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good" (Gen. 50:20).
You can probably think of times in your life or in the life of someone you know, when the worst happened and out of that came unexpected or unimagined good. All things can work together for the good--even struggles. All things do work together for the good. Keep your eyes on the good. Even, in a struggle, give thanks in anticipation of the good that will come.
It is almost impossible to be in a real crises and see through it to the good that may be, and yet if we can hold--cling!--to that real possibility, we can ride through the struggle with the sense that we are "Yours," that we are God's, that we are beloved children who are presently being cared for. It is a feat of imagination and sometimes fortitude to believe that out of what seems bad or evil, awful or wicked, a good thing can emerge, but we all have the gifts to do this. And the very first good thing that comes is a compassion. We become the peope who hear another person's suffering and are there for them in the struggle. Our hearts open.
In certain ways, it is as simple as "there is a light at the end of the tunnel." Except it is more more powerful and present. The light is ours now, and believing and trusting that helps us to see the Good that always exists, unfailing, all-present, more powerful than any struggle--the only power.
I wish you strength for the practice of such daring believing! And I am yours in the struggle.
Rev. Sam Wilde
I began to think about how we, any of us, make it through genuinely hard times. I also began to think about that line, "yours in the struggle." I started to ask, "who is ours in the struggle?" And, "who is with us in the struggle?"
I began to imagine God, or the Divine, speaking that line: "I am yours in the struggle." There is a sense of belonging and connection and absolute loyalty. It may be true that when we really undergo hardship we feel alone or disconnected from the Good, but it is not a truth. Suffering can lead us to feel abondoned by the Source of Peace, but nothing is closer to us in a crises than God. Many people have found this to be so; in fact, many people do not come to a spiritual understanding of life until they undergo a hardship.
It makes me think of two of my most favorite lines in the bible: "All thing work together for good for those who love God" (Romans 8:28), and from the very end of Genesis: "You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good" (Gen. 50:20).
You can probably think of times in your life or in the life of someone you know, when the worst happened and out of that came unexpected or unimagined good. All things can work together for the good--even struggles. All things do work together for the good. Keep your eyes on the good. Even, in a struggle, give thanks in anticipation of the good that will come.
It is almost impossible to be in a real crises and see through it to the good that may be, and yet if we can hold--cling!--to that real possibility, we can ride through the struggle with the sense that we are "Yours," that we are God's, that we are beloved children who are presently being cared for. It is a feat of imagination and sometimes fortitude to believe that out of what seems bad or evil, awful or wicked, a good thing can emerge, but we all have the gifts to do this. And the very first good thing that comes is a compassion. We become the peope who hear another person's suffering and are there for them in the struggle. Our hearts open.
In certain ways, it is as simple as "there is a light at the end of the tunnel." Except it is more more powerful and present. The light is ours now, and believing and trusting that helps us to see the Good that always exists, unfailing, all-present, more powerful than any struggle--the only power.
I wish you strength for the practice of such daring believing! And I am yours in the struggle.
Rev. Sam Wilde
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