Inspiration?
Maybe
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Inspiration?
What the heck does that even mean?
These days?
To me?
Now?
Right here
and now?
That which lifts me up.
That which opens my heart.
That which shifts my mood.
That which infuses me with energy.
Make sense?
Last week I both wrote about and lived into Bleak Week.
Bleak Week #1.
This week
Sneakily began following in
Her sister’s footsteps.
I began cautiously calling
This new sibling,
Bleak Week Junior.
Indeed
The
Forces
Of
BLEAK
Were real.
Weather? Oddly extreme and erratic.
Body? Still sore and tenderly injured.
Politics? OYE, murky and mindless and immoral.
Unknowns? At every turn, and everywhere.
So many contributors to Bleak Weeks #1 and Almost Bleak Week Junior.
And then.
Then two things
Interrupted my downward spiral.
I want to share them with you today.
I don’t know if they share any thematic connection.
Actually, I think not.
The connection for me is that—both shifted me.
Both, in the midst of The Bleak, opened up my heart.
I saw a sign once in a 12 Step meeting room out in Colorado.
Of all places.
It said:
IF YOU FIND YOURSELF AT THE BOTTOM OF A DEEP HOLE,
STOP DIGGING.
These two pieces
Helped me
To put down
My shovel.
OH!
WAIT!
I’m not saying forever
Is the shovel down.
I’m saying now.
Just for this Now.
The shovel,
My
Shovel,
Is
Down.
~~~
#1. Thanks, Amy. F. for sending this. I hadn’t heard of this podcast nor of this poet. For that matter, I had not heard the narrator. All three blew my shovel out of my hand. In a gust of beauty. Give yourself 14 minutes to listen to this man’s voice, echoing with heart. Listen to the poet’s words, echoing with stunning truth.
~~~
I wasn’t going to attempt to write anything about the siege in the temple in Texas. What words could I possibly offer? Then I heard Rabbi Angela’s Buchdahl’s 11- minute sermon.
Rabbi Angela is head rabbi of Central Synagogue, a Reform Jewish congregation in NYC. She is a powerful teacher and leader, one of my heroes. I have streamed my way into Central Synagogue’s services well before zoom was “a thing”.
Rabbi Angela was contacted by the gunman who was looking for “influential rabbis”. She talked to him twice during the eleven-hour hostage ordeal.
In this sermon, she gives us so much.
~~~
Dear Friends,
I say to us today—no matter what is happening around—
Look for the beauty.
Look for the grace.
Inspiration is right there
Waiting to touch us.
BY NO MEANS AM I SAYING, DON’T FEEL THE BLEAK.
I am saying,
Look for
The inspiration
To give us
The courage
To keep
Going
Forward,
Through
The
Bleak
And
Outta
The
Bleak.
Don’t worry—it’ll be back.
Let’s ride the waves.
Look for the beauty.
Look for the grace.
Look
For
The
Inspiration.
Blessings, to all—
Aruni