The Universe wasn't having it this week. It handed me the fragile beauty of these peonies. Like me this week they were falling apart, disintegrating, past their prime.
And yet. Still. Lovely.
The week started out with the horrible tragedies in Orlando. First the shooting of the singer, Christina Grimme. Followed close on the heels by the mass shooting at Pulse. So many lives wrecked, ended, horribly altered. The two-year old Nebraska toddler snatched from his father by an alligator while on vacation.
A dear friend received staggeringly sad news that made all of us close to her weep and pray and hope for the best.
In all of this, there was no magic carpet ride to bliss. Even though I pray every day and meditate and journal and pray some more and volunteer in the community and play with my friends and make my bed every day. In short, I do what we all do. I try to create order out of chaos, give each day some structure so there's something I can depend on. And still it all goes to shit. I have more questions than answers like:
- Why can't someone else be sick?
- How can this happen?
- Why can't we all just get along?
- Why didn't someone step in and help or stop those people before they wrecked so many lives?
- Why weren't there signs?
Despite my best efforts I feel lost, confused, dazed. And yet I know that peace and love start in my own heart. I'm angry with the shooters and with a Universe that can afflict those I love. I'm angry with politicians who can't seem to get their act together to get semi-automatic weapons off our streets and good, sustainable mental health care to those in crisis.
Yet in the asking I received an answer this week from the writings of Father Thomas Keating:
"God approaches us from many different perspectives: illness, misfortune, bankruptcy, divorce proceedings, rejection, inner trials. God has not promised to take away our trials, but to help us change our attitude toward them."
Sometimes there aren't answers that make any sense and I find I must live with the questions. Instead of demanding the Universe make sense to me, Father Keating's writings suggest that God is present in the confusion and disappointment.
Once when I was taking the disappointments of the Universe particularly personally, Prince Charming said to me, "Notice the birds singing, the sun shinning. Yes this is hard, but there's still so much to be happy about."
In that moment I understood that I thought that if something bad happened I shouldn't, couldn't be happy. Prince Charming was telling me that even though the world is a bruising, brutal place; that isn't all there is.
This week there have been parades.
with marching bands
And old trucks
marching
and beauty queens waving
There has been wine with girlfriends
This week, like every week, there has been falling apart and then putting ourselves back together again. We're not the same as were last week. We are battered and bruised by the suffering. We are humbled by a chaotic and mean world that is still full of beauty, grace and love. And so many of us across this country and around the world have said no to hate and yes to love.
Dear ones hold lightly to all that you hold dear and remember "We are God's work of art" (Ephesians 2:10).
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