david

So much of our time and energy, whether we are aware of it or not, goes into finding our footing, so to speak, or trying to find balance – mostly emotional or spiritual balance, though sometimes (especially as we age) our physical balance as well. The world we live in is so good at challenging our sense of balance – our sense of stability and even of trustworthiness. Too often we react as if the world is doing this to us personally – trying to make our own lives difficult. Usually however, Life, and the world, are simply doing what they do – being immensely complex arrangements between life and death, love and hate, beginnings and endings.

Humans have many ways of dealing with these realities! (That’s an understatement.) Religious beliefs and practices are often involved, as are power dynamics and ways of dealing with fear, and lots of other things. Not that most of us name these dynamics in ourselves – especially our ways of dealing with fear.

At the heart of spiritual searching, and sometimes of spiritual practice, is the need to respond to the presence of fear. For myself in this practice, sometimes I think I am learning and growing, and sometimes I’m pretty sure I’m mostly fooling myself. Because of this I have a sense that working together to address fears is very helpful. The political landscape in our country is part of the way the world is going, and it certainly adds to our challenges of trying to find and maintain balance in the presence of fear. For the next few weeks, I’m looking forward to talking about these challenges with all of you, as we make our way toward an election season which will need the best we have to give.

See you Sunday — Jill (PS: Ask me about my theory that tendencies toward authoritarianism around the world are closely related to un-articulated fears about climate change.)

Several years ago, in the first summer of the pandemic, we were trying to cope with the realization of a long road ahead of us, the unknowns at at every turn, the fear and sadness. Together we were building a daily practice of centering and giving thanks. This passage, written one August morning, reminds me of the never-ending need for that practice:

“How does a morning look and feel to you, where you are? And how do you know? Do you check a weather report first, or go outside? Do you gather resignation as you get out of bed, or catalogue current pains, or give thanks for a new day? Have you imagined or tried dedicating your first breaths to goodness or compassion?

Or saying a morning prayer as the first thing? Daily practice is about orienting and turning to the day aiming toward love. It involves taking in — being present to – more than assumptions and judgements we carry from yesterday. Taking in the sky, the clouds and trees, the sunlight and shadows, birds, flowers, insects, the fact of the earth. Being present to the realities of human limitations, our own and others, while at the same time remembering the immensity of time and space of which each and every life is one small part. Acknowledging, remembering, the possibilities for love (which contains justice and compassion and joy.) Reverence is a good word to describe this process of remembering, orienting and turning.

We begin in reverence for the day and for all it brings – everything welcome and not welcome, everything we think we know and all we do not. With thanks each breath that enters the body. With thanks for the hazy morning sky and the sun coming over the trees once more. With thanks for a chance to let love hold us and move through us for one more day.

May we breathe in and breathe out and bow to the morning, and to Life.”