Written in writing group on Monday, October 17:<\/p>\n
Met Gwen & Sandra near the stairs \u2014 said I was having a hard time.\u00a0 <\/span>They both hugged me, asked if I felt loved.\u00a0 <\/span>I said yes.<\/p>\n
Won\u2019t you look down upon me Jesus
\nWon\u2019t you help me take a stand
\nYou just gotta see me through another day
\nMy body\u2019s achin\u2019 and my time is at hand
\nI can\u2019t make it any other way…<\/p><\/blockquote>\nThese lines are from James Taylor’s Fire & Rain<\/a><\/p>\n
Song in my head.\u00a0 <\/span>Won\u2019t stop.\u00a0 <\/span>But I feel so totally helpless to make any kind of difference.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019m so tired<\/span>, I just have no energy at all.\u00a0 <\/span>Can barely do the things I have to do to take care of myself.\u00a0 <\/span>Seems like I spent the morning writing checks and getting them into envelopes.\u00a0 <\/span>Then I tried to help the people who are writing activist postcards, but I couldn\u2019t find the room.\u00a0 <\/span>Pushing my cart so I could pick up my groceries, down to the health center and back.<\/p>\n
I keep trying to return to metta<\/a>: May all beings be held in lovingkindness, may the Israelis be held in lovingkindness, may the Palestinians be held in lovingkindness, may Netanyahu be held in lovingkindness, may Trump be held …. \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>won\u2019t you help me take a stand, you just gotta see me through another day.<\/p>\n
Reading about the life of St. Francis.\u00a0 <\/span>What an amazing human being!\u00a0 <\/span>But how hard it was for people to get what he was doing.\u00a0 <\/span>The writer, Richard Rohr, is a Franciscan, but he learned all the wrong things.\u00a0 <\/span>I don\u2019t know how he found his way through.\u00a0 <\/span>He talks about the importance of learning how to be with silence and solitude, and how you can learn about god and non-duality.\u00a0 <\/span>But people can also value being alone because they feel superior, or want to look superior.\u00a0 <\/span>I haven\u2019t got the words right, but what struck me is that my difficulty with silence and solitude is due to early trauma, not some kind of pride.\u00a0 <\/span>I wish I could make friends, talk to people more easily, I just never learned how.\u00a0 <\/span>Lately I\u2019ve been feeling horribly alone and completely useless, unable to do anything good for the world I love.\u00a0 <\/span>Francis talks about not being important, about living on the margins \u2014 how did he do so much good?\u00a0 <\/span>Because he obviously inspired people, not by what he said but by who he was, by how he moved through the world, what he did.\u00a0 <\/span>At the time of the Crusades, he went to talk to the leader of the Muslims, spent 3 weeks with him, but was never able to convince the Crusaders that what they were doing was wrong and was bound to fail.\u00a0 <\/span>Was that when it all began?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ve been reading Eager to Love<\/a>, the book about St. Francis by Richard Rohr. For information about Francis’ visit to the Sultan of Egypt at the time of the Crusades, see Chapter 10: Entering the World of Another: Francis and the Sultan of Egypt.<\/p>\n
After I read my writing to my friends in writing group, Judith said she wanted to read the poem St. Francis and the Sow, by Galway Kinnell<\/a>. \u00a0It’s a poem I know from a reading by David Whyte, tho the only words I could remember were\u00a0<\/span>\u201cto reteach a thing its loveliness…\u201d This is only the first part:<\/p>\n
The bud
\nstands for all things,
\neven for those things that don\u2019t flower,
\nfor everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
\nthough sometimes it is necessary
\nto reteach a thing its loveliness,
\nto put a hand on its brow
\nof the flower
\nand retell it in words and in touch
\nit is lovely
\nuntil it flowers again from within, of self-blessing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nMy heart was warmed by her gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written in writing group on Monday, October 17: Met Gwen & Sandra near the stairs \u2014 said I was having a hard time.\u00a0 They both hugged me, asked if I felt loved.\u00a0 I said yes. Won\u2019t you look down upon … Continue reading