Good Morning TSJ Readers!
Stop to think about this. Do you need to be rescued right now? Or have you known a time you desperately needed rescuing?
My guess is if you are reading this letter blog you are willing to nod a yes even if you are in a great space this morning. I truly hope all of you are supremely happy, safe, secure, excited about being alive, feel fulfilled and content with no worries about saying or doing anything wrong. Okay. Now I have gone too far. No one really lives in utopia.
Camelot does not hold up under scrutiny. .. or under self examination. No matter what is happening to the visible world there is always the interior world that goes with us every where and all the time.
Solomon, our TSJ symbol of wisdom, has been hard at work this week. Oh to have limitless wisdom for the journey of life!
One thing I keep learning and re-learning is that as humans we can sorely relate to a wish to be rescued. Often from terrible situations or circumstances and even more often from our own selves. There is a part of us that haunts us as we live out our days and threatens to condemn us to a life of inner struggle and sometimes even misery.
Have you ever been so over the top tired, worried or discouraged that you just wish you could land safely on an island “away from it all” and feel that desired peace and rest we all long for and seems so elusive?
Well, you know as well as I that even there you will be only as happy as you are inside. Like the saying goes, “Everywhere I go, I go with me.”
But the good news is…everywhere we go we have a God that goes with us too and a living, loving God who invites us to be in a trusting and joy-filled relationship. I forget that. So Solomon often has his hands full here at TSJ. I am one who worries endlessly about what others think, about how inefficient I am in this world of great need, demand, and choice, and about falling short of the bigger self I wish to claim etc.
We all need a rescue from time to time. Yet we hate to admit it and acknowledge our needs. Still, a rescue is one of life’s miracles!
But even when we cry out to be rescued there are moments of waiting. Painful waiting, one that creates the tug of war between hope someone will find you – and fear they won’t.
We are like that on the inside too. Because our brains are wired to always look detect something wrong, our inner life is really like a tug-of-war between the voice of discouragement, fear, and doom and the voice of faith, hope and love.
What I am learning is that much of this has to do with how we see things or our perception of things.
It is impossible not to see what you believe or in the reverse, it is equally impossible to see what you do not believe.
Perception is sometimes used in two ways – to refer to awareness – or to your interpretation of awareness. But they are so closely linked it is likely you cannot perceive something without an interpretation.
Sometimes we need new perceptions which bring new interpretations from old events. How do we achieve that? Through a new kind of experience. That is where we help each other.
In the end we all need each other. We are like understudies to the Great Shepherd. We can shepherd each other and shepherds are trained to be on the look out for fallen sheep. Some of us are professional shepherds of sorts, and all of us can care for one another. Sometimes we rescue one another in simple ways.
We can lead people into a new kind of experience. One in which they feel heard, understood, and loved. Each one of us need that new kind of experience in our broken world. Sometimes by giving it to others we actually experience it ourselves.
So Solomon reminded me. “Ms. Margie, you will have new kind of experiences when you remember to relax into what the Shepherd is already providing for you. Do what you tell your TSJ peeps when you tell them to go play in the pastures.
But sometimes we fall and need help getting back up.
So, if this day you could use some sort of a rescue, be sure to let someone know (the Shepherd is there and has an eye on you already) but there are many other shepherds in the fields. Your cries are indeed heard and rescuers are available. You know who they may be.
The idea is that hope, happiness and love create a new kind of experience and new beliefs about how we can find and create happiness in a pretty sad world.
Remember we all love rescue stories and sometimes we are the rescuer and sometimes we are the rescued. We all have a voice in this world to help each other! And our experiences are meant to be shared.
Hoping we can spread love and joy in the pastures today!
Margie and Solomon
PS…Solomon and I are glad to be here for you. If you want or need a phone call or an email connection please say so!