the economy of God

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.”

 Bessel A. van der Kolk

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It is that feeling

Deep down in your gut

That you don’t have this

That sense that everything is slipping through your hands

and crashing to the floor

shattering into a thousand pieces

too many of us feel it

I feel it

it is the queasy feeling in the stomach

the racing head

the hole in the center of one’s soul

it is climate change

and a President abusing his power

and a politicians that put money over people

It is children separated from parents

And dystopian legislation

And mass shootings

It is too many things coming from two many directions

It is too many demands

Too much pain

Too much hoplessness

It is that moment in the middle of the afternoon

When you pace the floor and your stomach hurts

And your heart aches

And your mind races

And you cannot stop

And sit

And do anything

Because it feels like there is nothing you can do

At all

At all

And yet there is something I can do

I can accept my feeling

And notice my thoughts

And then I can let go

Of my need to have things “all tied up”

My need to have the universe “line up” (as if)

And look around me

And see who is there

Within reach

Whose life I can touch with compassion

To whom I can offer something

That will make their life richer and better

I can look around me and see

Who is lonely, or lost?

Who is afraid?

Who is in pain?

And I can reach out with compassion, and generosity

Sometimes service is the best antidote

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said

“The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”

And Jesus said the “greatest among you will be your servant”

Ah, the strange economy of God

Where the last are first

And the poor are blessed

And the givers receive

When Paul says “overcome evil with good”

It is not just an imperative

It is a promise

It is the promise that as we get outside ourselves

And invest our self in actions of love

We will change not only the outer world

But our inner world

For the better.