I want a broken heart

I want a heart that is torn open with longing

so that I might share the pain of this love.

          Rumi

 

Shit happens

This is the human condition… It is by showing up for the full encounter with reality that we discover our hidden wholeness, which was of course present all along.

          Mirabai Starr

____________________________

 

my heart hurts

a lot

 

At times I wish it were not so!

It would be much easier not to care.

It would be much safer to hide behind privilege.

 

There is something appealing by suiting up in emotional Kevlar

so that I cannot be wounded

 

There is something alluring in the idea of using weapons

both figurative and literal

to assault those things that threaten or simply anger

 

But we cannot hide from the pain.

We cannot blast it away with words or bullets

 

Not without losing touch with that

within us which makes us Sacred children.

Not without denying the divine image.

 

Just as God takes on our pain, and carries it

and transforms it,

so we must take on not only our own pain,

but the pain of the world.

 

For as we accept the pain, and let it cut through

our defenses to the heart

that is when we find

that there, at the center of how we are

is what we need

call it divine presence, call it Holy Spirit

call it the true self,

 

to touch that pain and transform it

 

to translate it into compassion

and forgiveness

and generosity

and caring

 

pain and love go together

the alchemy of God