The Torn Soul

“Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world, or by running away from things, or by turning solitary and going apart from the world. Rather, we must learn an inner solitude wherever or with whomsoever we may be. We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.”

                                                                                                      Meister Eckhart

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my soul, at times

feels torn apart

it is savaged

by the hate and anger that permeates our world

there are wars and rumors of wars

bombs in Baghdad and Istanbul

destroying lives that matter

there are images of a black man

bleeding to death in the front seat of his car

while a 4 year old pleads in the background

all for no good reason

there are people in power

and people who want to be in power

who act like bullies

as if a lack of empathy

a willingness to use and abuse power,

and a disregard for all but themselves

qualifies them to be a leader

there are parents rejecting their children

because they were born gay, or lesbian

there are church people who present God

as a God of hate (and act accordingly) instead of a God of love

and crush the spirit of the weak and vulnerable

there are people on the street

invisible and neglected

people with addictions, judged and scorned

poor people shamed

mentally ill people treated as non-persons

I cannot shut my ears to the sounds of hate

I cannot shut my eyes to injustice

I cannot close my heart to the vulnerable and oppressed

I must see it all

hear it all

take it all in

how do I survive this?

how do I carry it?

I allow the pain, the horror

yes the blood to “melt my heart”  (Thanks to Morgan Guyton)

the way the blood of Jesus was intended to change the hearts of all humanity

and I allow the Sacred Presence

to move me

not just to the pain, but into the pain

and from that place

that place

perhaps it is the foot of the cross,

allow Sacred Presence to

transform what I feel and think

about what I see and hear and experience

into something

new

into a resolution

to respond to what I see, and hear, and feel

with committed, purposeful, active

practical

challenging

transformative

compassionate

reconciling

love

this is complex

and I do not have a good answer

about how to balance confrontation with compassion

and anger with peace

about how to move from judgment to understanding

I cannot always do it

I only know that sometimes

all I can do so go out

in the early dawn

and watch the sun rise into a peaceful sky

and in that solitude

go deep into my soul

and find

the Sacred

in it all