I can feel the coming of a big tide, a metaphorical hurricane like the one that Louisiana is living through this week and is sweeping through the south. I know lots of our leadership is ready for their virtual visit with the CCAC Accreditation group and feeling a bit anxious. The election and increase of the positive Covid 19 cases all around us is anxiety provoking too. I remember this reading from Clarissa Estes that gave me great hope the last time I felt like as a people we were so splintered and aching. It is a longer essay that I have attached below, it is entitled “We were made for these times”. I love the image she uses for community as a seaworthy vessel. In the waves of a turbulent sea, it is difficult to trust that the vessel you are in and have helped build will survive the storm. Remember that there are many good people who hope for calmer times for themselves and their children. Each of us can contribute when we seek the good for one another in a turbulent world.
My prayer for us for today:
My friends, together, we are more resilient than we even know
Let us hold each other close in spirit
Let us hold each Covid 19 positive person in healing light
Let us reach out across our political divide and look into the eyes of our neighbor and see shared humanity
Let us watch our speech that we might speak with compassion
Let us dig deep into all we are to take the path towards peace
We each are too precious for the world to discount even one soul
Let us be the light and the love the world needs to move towards brighter wholeness with each part valued and seen as precious.
Let us also let the power of the Creator lift us up and towards one another in a grand holy embrace.
Amen.
Be your gorgeous self today to brighten the world.
Michelle
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD, “We Were Made for These Times”
My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now.
Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the waters than there are right now across the world.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Don’t you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good.
We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.
In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.