Tags
Acts of the Apostles, grief, loss, love, Meg Wheatley, perseverance, The Sophia Center for Spirituality
Here we are in the second week of Easter, moving on (some of us) as if all had been resolved and we have come back to normalcy (as if we could even define what that means.) Christ is alive. We have assurance of that and of what it means from the Acts of the Apostles. (As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness…” Acts 4:30-31) But are we ready to get back to the place we left over a year ago when everything abruptly shut down and a new reality was presented to us? Is it even possible to do that?
In the midst of that musing, I opened Meg Wheatley’s little book, Perseverance, and found the exact word that we need to consider, I think, at this juncture. See if you don’t agree. The word was Grief and the reflection said the following:
If we are able to give ourselves to the loss, to move toward it—rather than recoil in an effort to escape, deny, distract, or obscure—our wounded hearts become full, and out of that fullness we will do things differently, and we will do different things. Our loss, our wound, is precious to us because it can wake us up to love, and to loving action. (Norman Fischer, Zen teacher)