Paradox and Puzzles

 

I’m longing to live from a place of wholeness, a place of expansion. 
I’m longing for deep peace, satisfaction, and love to drive me.

I’m longing for new patterns of freedom and flourishing.

 

Can I long for these things while the world is on fire? 

Can I pour energy into these things when wars rage and everyone argues? 

Can I focus my attention on the light streaming through my window, the coziness of the rain, and feeling good in my own skin ~ when violence reigns, politicians fight, and corruption seems to be in every corner of everything? 

 

It feels incongruent doesn’t it? Like nails on a chalkboard or an itchy, spreading rash. How can I rest with this awful sound and this nagging ache? How can I work to create the life I’ve always longed for while millions around the world are starving or being killed? 

 

I torture myself with these questions. 

I’m the existential crisis barbie, thinking of death in the middle of the party. 

I can barely read or watch the news because it tempts me to despair. 

 

And yet, I can’t help but think, 

chasing light,

hunting for beauty,

letting myself be loved,

and then giving that love away freely…

 

this all becomes ESSENTIAL in the midst of 

darkness,

violence,

destruction,

and hate. 

 

Perhaps there is a way to deeply care about the pain and brokenness of the world WHILE also tending to my one little life and the lives of those around me. 

 

Perhaps there is a way to fight against war by loving the neighbour at my door.

Perhaps I can fight horrendous injustices around the world by fighting for the abused down the street. 

Perhaps I can show my children there is hope for a better world by modelling what healing and wholeness can look like. 

Perhaps making oatmeal for breakfast, drizzled with local honey and dusted with cinnamon, matters somehow ~ especially when my hands are shaking from another headline or a text message I’m trying to sort through. 

Perhaps hanging laundry in the wind, or learning how to mountain bike, could be in direct defiance of despair:

We will have clean clothes and linens because we can.

We will have healthy bodies and resilient nervous systems because these are available to us.  

 

 ~~~  

 

Does watching leaves dance help the world’s pain? 

Does reading and writing poetry change anything? 

Am I allowed to enjoy a hot shower, or my husband’s arms, when so many people are alone in the cold? 

 

I don’t know.

But I do know that paying deep attention to life, my own and others, is slowly healing me. 

I do know that focusing repeatedly on this right now breath keeps me awake. 

I do know that allowing and awakening to EVERY part of life is changing me. 

 

The world is full of paradox and puzzles. 

I AM here for all of it.