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Greetings to Our TSJ Friends,
Our adorable and wise old sheep who serves as my muse and TSJ’s mascot (aka-Solomon), joins me to wish you a happy Wednesday (even if late in the day).
Perhaps he wanted to be in the greeting because he is worried you will like the sheep in the picture and forget him. But no . . . he is too wise for that. He says humans worry way too much about being the best or most special because they do not really understand all that much about love.
Besides, can a stuffed sheep have an ego? Well, yes . . . if it is Solomon. Why? Because he is alive in our hearts. Solomon symbolizes our deeply human struggles with complex emotions.
But I digress.
More seriously, this week we have been contemplating about things that Solomon says are “of great importance.”
Refelection
We have been pondering a lot about how important it is for us to be honest with ourselves and face our best and worst selves with courage.
It takes courage to honestly face ourselves. Yet this will keep our hearts supple and strong so when we face life’s travesties and troubles we will have hearts that can broken open vs. broken apart/shattered. The first reaction leads to grace, forgiveness, reconciliation and mercy. Almost like a flower who’s bud softly opens to its most brilliant purpose. The second leads to shards of pain that get projected into the world causing more pain. Almost like a broken piece of china.
And to learn how to transform pain into possibility of a better self and a better world we need to learn from those who have gone before us and from ordinary people around us with extraordinary capacities for resilience and love.
We all need tidbits of wisdom to graze on in the life’s changing pastures, rather like Winnie-The-Pooh looking for a “little something” from his honey jars.
Seasons
Since it is winter here in update New York, it seems like a good day to feast your eyes on the green grass and sheep in the picture above sent by a TSJ friend. I also thought it a good reminder that when skies are grey, the winds are cold and the roads are slippery – “this too shall pass.” Soon the sun will be out more often than not, grass will adorn itself in lush green colors and flowers will pop up like smiles.
So, I admit I am in that older season in life that brings new ways of being in the world. New ways to practice being broken open rather than broken apart.
As others of my age, I am amused that I now am one of “those.” I sometimes grunt getting out of the car or a chair. And I admit I am jarred when I have to talk about health issues (often simply related to being older) with medical practitioners younger than my children. Can this be me?
Yes, growing older is both rewarding and diminishing as I experience losses from friends and family to physical strengths etc.
I am more convinced than ever that building our inner resources in all seasons of our lives by tending to our souls, is crucial for courage in aging.
And being human at any age takes courage.
A booster shot for courage comes both by
absorbing the wisdom of those who have gone before us,
and the energy of younger people that can infuse us with renewed vitality and hope.
It is a both-and deal. Always.
This week I have been inspired once again by Parker Palmer, a gifted and ambitious writer, poet, activist, and educator. At seventy-nine, he has published a book titled: On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Growing Old. I highly recommend it for your inner journey.
I was touched and encouraged by how many things he discusses that we at TSJ often share together. For example, topics about the good, the bad, and the ugly of human emotions, about anxieties and fears and heartache. But also about the power of love to transform us and the power of nature to provide sanctuary for our souls. Mostly we ponder the….
Inner Journey:
Parker Palmer calls it “reaching in” and says, for millennia the world’s wisdom traditions have majored in mapping various pathways to the soul…” yet many of us avoid the inner journey by leaning on the external world of success and productivity and fame to “feel alive.” In so doing, Parker warns, “when we experience diminishments and defeats — the kind that can come at any age and are inevitable when we get old — we run the risk of feeling dead before our time…”
But Solomon quickly adds – any time is a good time to slow down and reach inside. There you will discover that both the demons and angels must be faced for us to become whole and . . .
Broken-Open
Life is gritty and it is filled with grace. Life is tough and life is tender. Hearts can be broken open or broken apart.
Parker Palmer wrote a section titled “Heartbreak and Hope for New Life” which he introduces this way ..
“About the transformative power of the heart that’s broken open, not apart.
The broken-open heart is a place of spiritual alchemy,
where the dross of hard experience can be transformed into the gold of wisdom.
All it takes is practice, practice, practice.”
To that Solomon said, “Amen, Ms. Margie. Isn’t that what I have told you?” I nod in agreement.
So when life throws us curve balls and sometimes hits us hard
let us “reach in” and find the Love of God
who says “Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be afraid.”
This is the path to being “Broken Open.”
