Parinama

    We are all asked to carry some of the burdens of others.   Whether it be the unhealed wounds of our parents, the addiction of a child, the losses of the refugee or orphan, the pain of others flows through the same channels of love. It can be hard to keep your balance holding this kind of pain and vulnerability.   We suffer because it does not lie within our power to make things better.   And yet, shouldering these burdens, holding some of the pain and confusion does give respite and some lightness to those we carry within our hearts.   And because it makes us tender, this work that we do for one another brings us greater capacity for healing ourselves and the world. While knowing these things gives purpose to the burdens I carry, it is still hard and sometimes nearly impossible work.   I am reminded of my friend who just lost her mother, the father who walks beside his adult child in addiction, the sister of the incarcerated brother and my heart ...

One thing I really missed on the Nepal trip was swimming.   I swim every summer and early fall evening that I can in a sweet highland lake not far from my house.   It is quiet when I go around sunset.   Families have packed up for the day and the campers are cooking dinners over fires.   There might be a few kayakers or paddlers and a few other swimmers some I have made friends with over the years.   In a lake this large, it can feel as if I have the whole glorious scene to myself.   As I walk to the shore from the parking lot, my body starts to relax, my mind releasing the tight knot of workday thinking, planning, worrying, and figuring out.   Diving into the cool waters, I dive back into myself. The sweet earthy fragrance of the forest, the golden light flickering through the trees, the flow of water on my skin fills my senses with delight and wonder.   The water is a different color each time.   Sometimes grey with whi...

I would argue that an authentic life is a life that is aware of and willing to engage its own oppositions, and honorably inhabits that threshold where the light and darkness..and all the beginnings and endings of one’s own life engage. John O’Donohue, Wandering in the Fields of Wonder I have called Eckhart’s way ‘the way of Paradox’, because he sees the Reality of the Divine in the clash of opposites. This tension has to be experienced in our daily life; this is the practice of detachment. But it also has to be experienced in our thinking and talking and this involves paradox. Cyprian Smith, The Way of Paradox Light and darkness, beginning and endings, love and disgust are some of the many opposites that live within me.   Day by day, moment by moment, my feelings will change from hope to despair, calm to agitation, openness to closeness and then back around again.   I am thrown about so easily when unexpected challenges catch me off guard.   I a...