Love’s Response

Apparently, my last post concerned some of my friends. Not to worry. I’m not down or discouraged. On the contrary, I’m actually very encouraged.

Encouraged because the more self-aware I become, the more able to step back and see what is arising in me, the less I identify with this judging, fearful self.  Encouraged that the more I allow myself to be held by love in the middle of all that arises, the more aware I am of the loving container that holds it all.

And encouraged because more people are willing to go down into those places in themselves.

This is what’s needed during this transformative time – this going down into the darkness and meeting what is there. It’s the only way we can begin to heal. As individuals, and as a nation.

Many have been reflecting on this topic lately. Guess we all know that darkness has been coming to the surface. Darkness that needs to be addressed.

As Richard Rohr said in a recent meditation:

“Human consciousness does not emerge at any depth except through struggling with our shadow. It is in facing our conflicts, criticisms, and contradictions that we grow. It is in the struggle with our shadow self, with failure, or with wounding that we break into higher levels of consciousness….”

I’ve certainly tangled with my shadow. Struggled as I’ve discovered my particular woundings.

But I’ve also been trying to listen more deeply from this place.

Twice while in Albuquerque attending the Living School, I heard the same message, from different people on two completely unrelated occasions:  “God wants to take your heart and give you God’s heart in return. Be open to that.”

What does this mean? To have God’s heart?

To tell the truth, the idea scares me. It feels overwhelming, to have a heart that holds all the pain, all this darkness.

What will such a heart ask of me?

I don’t yet completely understand.

But as I listen more deeply, I hear that through this Heart, I will see the world differently. With eyes that recognize the goodness of everything. With a heart that can hold all the pain.

And a heart that is not afraid to step into the light.

To stand up and speak up from a voice of love. Even if that voice makes others feel uncomfortable. Doesn’t allow them to remain complacent.

A heart that asks me to accompany those in darkness. Those living on the margins. Those who are vulnerable and have no voice.

I hear it challenging me to use my own voice to challenge and change the negativity and untruths associated with words we use. Words like “immigrant” and “Mexican.”

To live out the directive to “welcome the stranger.”

To boldly support DACA and the young people who have studied and worked so hard and contributed so much good to our society.

To speak up when laws are inhumane and need to be changed. Some of us take strong, proactive stands to change the abortion law because we say it is wrong to treat the unborn inhumanely, yet few will stand up to change immigration laws that treat suffering human beings inhumanely.

Love requires that I respond differently to such suffering.

That I reflect on exactly what Jesus means when he says, “I was away from home and you gave me no welcome, naked and no clothing….I assure you, as often as you neglected to do it to one of these least ones, you neglected to do it to me.”(Matthew 25)

In my heart, I cannot neglect to hear that call. I can’t NOT respond.

And I know it will change me.

Spiritual leaders have been urging us to speak truth to power and call for justice during this transformative time when our collective shadow has shown itself so boldly. Rohr says, “There is every indication that the U.S., and much of the world, is in a period of exile now. The mystics would call it a collective ‘dark night.’

“Those who allow themselves to be challenged and changed will be the new cultural creative voices of the next period of history after this purifying exile.”

I may not know where I am going during this “exile.” I still do not fully know what is being asked of me. Or what it means to receive this heart as my own.

But I do hear love’s question, “Will you allow yourself to be challenged and changed?”

Can I say yes to this?

Can I respond wholeheartedly?

I have come to believe that this is what it means to be “virginal” – to let myself be a vessel, empty and available, open to something new being born in me. Something as unbelievable as the heart of God.