Tags
be not afraid, curious, end of life, fear, Hafiz, human, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, positive, present, spiritual tradition, Sufi, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
As often happens lately on Friday mornings, I sit down to write and wonder where the week went. Time seems to pass more quickly as we get older. People have told me that for years and I accepted it but now I know it from the inside. As a consequence of that thought, next comes a wondering about the stretch of life before me. How long will I be here? What will be my experiences, accomplishments, abilities? Will I maintain the health I have been blessed with? How will I face the end of my life?
To be honest, I rarely worry about the answers to those questions, primarily because I am trying to live in the present and because I trust that, whatever happens, divine grace will accompany me. I raise the topic today because of conversations I have had with older friends and with frequent reports of accidents and illnesses of others. As well, I opened Meg Wheatley’s book, Perseverance, this morning at random and the page that stared back at me was a reflection entitled Fear.
Normally I would shy away from talking about what are considered negative emotions because I prefer to stay in a positive mode of thinking, yet given the state of our country and my awareness of all the fear that is manifesting in personal and communal encounters lately I decided to read Wheatley’s comments and pass on what I found to be of value. As usual, I could just copy the entire entry – Meg Wheatley has a way of making good sense – but even the first few lines will do, I think. She says:
Fear is just part of human life. It’s so common that every great spiritual tradition includes the injunction: “Be not afraid.” If fear is this fundamental to being human, we can expect that we’ll feel afraid at times, perhaps even frequently. Yet when fear appears, we don’t have to worry that we’ve failed, or take it as a sign that we’re not as good as other people. In fact, we’re just like other people. Fear is simple evidence that we’re human. What’s important to decide is what to do with our fear…(p. 71)
The author suggests moving toward our fear, being curious about it, not asking why we’re afraid but rather investigating the feeling itself which can often dissipate the strength of the emotion in the process. Whether or not this is the way to proceed, my intent was simply to bring the topic to our consciousness for examination in our own lives, having been reminded that fear is, in fact, just part of living on earth. To conclude, I do want to add the quote that is a standard feature of every topic in Wheatley’s book, this one a short word from the 14th century Sufi poet Hafiz. It made me smile. He says:
Fear is the cheapest room in the house. I would like to see you living in better conditions.
Today as we pray for lasting peace while recognizing that our world is in peril on many fronts, and as we give thanks for those who have served and sacrificed for that goal, may we remember that it is up to each one of us to create peace in our own hearts as a first step to the achievement of universal peace.
I’m so glad I live in a time when poetry and literature from times and cultures other than my own have been made available. Especially do I love reading translations of mystical poetry like that of Hafiz (1320-1389) which express in a few words deeply felt spiritual truths or ways of relating to God that touch the cerebral western mind with new images of wild abandon. I was looking for something to wake me up with “oomph” today and was stopped by something less flowery but more thought-provoking than I expected from my search. Here it is: my advice for the day.
Yesterday’s celebration was for me a great – and surely lasting – gift, a “love fest” of sorts where energy is high and everyone is happy for everyone else. Late in the day I opened a gift from a friend and found a book that I was thrilled to receive entitled Love Poems From God; Twelve Voices from the East and West. The book fell open to the poem I will type below that I assumed was written by the mystical poet, Hafiz, because of what it sounded like. This morning I was surprised to find the author to be St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), the great (but in my acquaintance usually cerebral) theologian of the Roman Catholic Church. I have been softening to Thomas lately and will surely have a broader appreciation for his spirituality by the time I finish this book! Because it’s a book of poems, I suspect it will be a companion of mine for many years to come.
After eight days of virtually no speaking, I am clear about the difficulty of stopping inner chatter – at least for me. I realized somewhere during the past eight days how many thoughts flow through my head (several often at the same time) without my consciousness recognizing each or any of them. I began to wonder when I began to multi-task so much that the practice invaded my inner state as well as my outer daily life. One good place to start a reversal was at meals. Because we did not talk at meals, we just ate. I came to a renewed awareness of the awkwardness of spearing raw carrots or grape tomatoes in a salad as well as the fact that I often switch hands for guiding a spoonful of soup to my mouth. (Being very left-handed, I was taught that it was only proper to eat with one’s right hand, so as a child it was necessarily a conscious practice to do so. Now I know that even very early unconscious habits die hard.)
I get confused sometimes about the summer solstice. Is it the 20th or the 21st of June? Added to that this year was the title “Strawberry Moon” which I had never heard before. It turns out that I basically missed the whole (very rare) event as there was some cloud cover last night and it took me until this morning to read that the June moon got its name simply because it’s the season of strawberries in the USA. What I did not miss at 2:00AM, however, was a wild thunder and lightning event, with heavy rain drenching our bit of earth very quickly and moving on. I was awake just long enough to close my windows and to recognize the power of natural forces before I sank back into the oblivion of sleep. Maybe the storm actually lasted longer than I did in observing it…
Moving one day closer to the feast of Pentecost, I was drawn to pick up the book, The Gift, by the great Sufi mystic, Hafiz. What I opened to was a surprise (as usual) and I thought it a great preparatory reflection for this weekend. It was titled “Why Not Be Polite” and said only this: Everyone is God speaking. Why not be polite and listen to Him?
