this thing called acceptance

I sit in my little room

this room in which

in this time of pandemic and trump

I spend so much time

 

Looking out on beauty

A the mountain high

the iris blooming

the grass green from almost too much rain

the cats playing

 

the sun, filtering through pine and fir

 

and I read

and sometimes scattered pieces of wisdom

gather in my soul

 

and I see and feel

something beyond the shallow seething hostility of Facebook

and beyond the posturing of hollow politicians

and the pontificating of fearful people speaking out of ignorance

something beyond my own

inner lies and fears

 

today I read a story, of a mother on a street

rolling a two year old child along the sidewalk

who being a two year old, was intolerable

 

in a moment she broke

and walking around the stroller she looked into that child’s face and screamed

“I hate you”

 

and I thought

we all have our breaking points

and when we break we often scream loudly

(sometimes on paper, sometimes on Facebook, or Twitter)

and in our screaming we say more about ourselves

than we do about the victim of our breaking

 

for what has been fermenting within

all our inner dialog comes roiling out

fetid, steaming, corrosive

a concert of chaos

 

today I read another offering (from James Finley)

in which he talks about contemplation

about the practice of stopping, breathing, and entering into that deeper place

that place from which love comes

because God is there

 

that place from which “I hate you come”

because chaos is also there

 

this inner journey is not always comforting

for as we wandering in those inner depths

suffering shows up

pain and fear, hate and anxiety

all show up

 

and we must greet them

for if we do not greet them, and recognize them

they will surely break free

and they will express themselves, as thoughts and feelings always do

 

they cannot be ignored or minimized

hoped away, deemed a mere nuisance

any more than Covid-19 can be ignored or minimized

 

but we never greet them alone

for in that deep place love also shows up

love of all that is Sacred

love of self

love of others

 

and as we greet Love

there is a reciprocity of love

and the foundations of our suffering are healed.

 

As we stay there, quietly in that deep place

in the midst of it all

the rising anger, the growing anxiety

we also sit with love

 

 As we stay there in that deep place

sitting with pain

sitting with love

attending

 

something happens

I cannot adequately explain it

but in that sitting, quietly

allowing it all to just be… not denying, not pushing away

just letting it all be in “the room” together with love

suffering, love

fear, love

hate, love

anxiety, love

 

in that sitting with it all

there comes healing, resolution, transformation

renewal

 

I suspect it is nothing more or nothing less

than acceptance

 

an acceptance that keeps us from breaking

and being people who break others

 

“Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”  Romans 12:2