I breathe

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“Waking up this morning, I smile. Twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion.”

Thich Nhat Hanh

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waking up this morning I am struggling to smile

like Martha, struggling to make things right

I am troubled by many things

 

I struggle with all the lies

I struggle with the pervasive fear, floating among us

and the way that this fear

drives people to embrace the way of oppression

and makes them cruel

 

I struggle with the not-so-slow destruction of the planet

 

I too want to rail

I want to protest loudly

I want to make things different, better

 

I want somehow to wake people up

to the way they are pursuing their own destruction

 

but all is vanity

my lament is scattered by the winds of hate and fear

and my words disappear

powerless

 

and so I go through the day

detached

I am no longer in the moment

feeling the earth beneath my feet

noticing the beauty of creation

 

I am distracted and anxious

and I no longer see

I do not see the “other”

I do not connect with them, and grasp their joy, or their pain

 

I am numbed

and compassion is lost

 

Jesus understood this

as the masses, anxious, trampled one another

and were changed (for the worst) by the hypocrisy of tainted leaders

and lived in fear (Luke 12)

 

he told them to stop

and breathe

and look around them

and to trust in the love of the Power that created the universe

and to set their hearts on the Kingdom of Love

rather than on power and wealth

 

Waking up this morning

facing an election that may have dire consequences

for the way of Love

 

I breathe

I look at the fresh snow

I breathe

I remember that God is love

I breathe

And vow to live fully in each moment

and to look at all beings with eyes of compassion