After hours and hours of news that is not only horrific but hardly believable coming from our nation’s capital, I found myself asking myself a question this morning. “What is real?” I immediately found myself in another universe where the question kept spinning out in the following conversation:
“What is real?” asked the Rabbit of the Skin Horse one day…”Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.” Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit. “Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real, you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up?” he asked, “or bit by bit?” “It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
I suggest a period of reflection on these words from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams to see if you have learned the most important lessons of love. I presume that, if you are reading this, you have worked hard at that task, likely for a long time. Following that conversation with yourself, you might want to reflect on what is happening in our world or our country and even the place you live to consider whether you know any people like those in the reading who have not been loved enough, especially the ones who are always trying to look like something they are not—that is, hiding from themselves. They need our prayers, so I would suggest that you see what you can do for them in that department.
It’s been raining – torrents and thunder-filled sometimes – for the past three days. Yesterday it was if the divine weatherman was playing with us. Drenching downpours were followed by moments of sun peeking out of big gray clouds – then rain again…Even this morning the deck behind our house is puddle-strewn. I look out at the trees, rain soaked as well, but shining now in full sun. What a relief! I never mind the rain but when we begin to hear of flooding streams I know it’s all too much for the farmers and I pray for the balance to be restored. So today it feels as if God is saying, “Wake up! All your sluggishness is washed away! New possibilities await you!” and I sing a response with the psalmist in a translation by Nan Merrill.
Late yesterday after a glorious five-hour drive through the beauty of Upstate New York and then the Green Mountains of Vermont I arrived at Hallelujah Farm, a beautiful, sacred place in Chesterfield, New Hampshire, just over the border from Brattleboro, Vermont. I have come here for a week of retreat. This time with a small group of people is to be totally silent, filled with centering prayer, sacred movement, the conscious work of preparing silent meals and cleaning up after ourselves, other small household tasks that provide us with opportunities to pay attention to what we’re doing when we’re doing it…as well as our own private time to pray and reflect. I have the privilege of rising early to provide coffee for my companions. Knowing how important that is for myself, I am happy to provide it for those who share this experience with me.
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 