I need to interrupt my “Nontheist…?” series to share the little mysterious bit of hope I’m holding onto since Tuesday’s frightening election.
For about a decade I’ve been integrating my Taoist Tai Chi practice with my earlier brief study of the chakras, so that I move my awareness from crown to root or the reverse as I do the moves or sit in worship.
During the past three years, my point of stuckness has been my solar plexus. That’s where I feel anxiety and loss of groundedness the most. But that point also represents in potential the seat of stability in the amidst of groundlessness. That is, when change and even chaos are at work and there is no place to stand.
This past Sunday during Quaker silent worship, a Friend described how she struggles with the notion of prayer. In particular the puzzle of what to pray for. She told us that she had come upon an answer that is helpful.
Pray for something to hope for.
The words themselves are a blessing. Yet what also happened inwardly is that I felt a shift upward from solar plexus to heart. Heart is the point I have been least able to open—except intellectually, which doesn’t engage the energies of my human beingness in a visceral way.
Now, whenever I feel distress over personal or global troubles, I find that my awareness drops into me heart, rather than lower. But here is the real opening for me.
When I stand in my heart and extend my heart outward, I discover that I cannot choose who receives that energy and who does not. It’s not mine to set boundaries on. I am not the gatekeeper.
So, when I ponder the terrifying changes that are upon us and drop into my heart, it goes out to everyone. Especially to those I most fear.
May they all feel safe, feel loved, and feel included.
The image is “Bleeding Heart III” by Mike Shell (11/18/2011).
I have been reminded this week, especially, of the vast way that Pope Francis used "hope" in his life and ministry to push forward his faith and his strength to become more like Jesus in His Ministry to the poor and downtrodden souls that he purposedly reached out to in many areas of the world in which we live. Pope Francis, admittedly a sinner, reached with hope to these people with characteristics of the people in whom Jesus ministered to make a difference in their lives for the good. I stand in awe of Jesus and Pope Francis with "hope" that the new Pope will be one who continues to be Christ-like in his ministry and follow the example of Jesus and Pope Francis.
Yes!