Christ United Evangelical Lutheran Church, Catawissa, PA

One of the hardest things to discern in life is when to step away from the emotional turmoil of those we love. Stepping away may seem as though we don’t care, a...nd we don’t feel very loving for even thinking about it. It’s a natural instinct to want to help those closest to us and stepping away feels like we’re turning our backs on them. This is even difficult to discern with those we don’t necessarily feel close to: when to remain present, when to step back and create a space between. There are people who thrive on emotional turmoil, who will create drama if none exists. Whether this makes them feel powerful or more alive, whether this is the only pattern of interacting they’ve ever learned, or whether it’s an attempt to avoid facing the harder issues of life, the result is the same. Our choice is to decide whether or not we want to be part of it. When we gain insight into the dynamics around these people, we begin to understand not everyone seeks healing. For those who do, remaining present and being a compassionate listener will help support them through the crisis. This is a good use of our spiritual gifts. For those who don’t seek healing, though, nothing we do will penetrate their shadow-need for drama. It is an act of self-love to walk away, an act of self-preservation. To stay means allowing their drama to suck us into its vortex, draining our energy, creating false emotions within us as we get caught up in their drama. And who knowswalking away just might create the space they need to fail, which is always a necessary part of soul growth. No one who thrives on drama will appreciate or understand our walking away, because our walking away will be a sign not everyone sees life as they do. The reaction can be especially strong if it’s family, because they will feel betrayed and angry that we’re not supporting them in their need for drama. Nevertheless, when we have the courage to remove ourselves from unhealthy dynamics, our souls celebrate, for we’ve take a big step on the wisdom journey to spiritual and emotional health. We’re here to grow spiritually and support one another on our journey so that together, we can learn and be more than we could alone. When drama gets in the way of this journey and keeps us stuck in emotional turmoil, we’ve forgotten why we’re here and waste precious soul time. It is a gift to our souls to keep our focus off the drama and firmly planted on the God who dwells within. This will help us discern whether we can help bring healing into the drama or whether we need to step out of the drama and walk away. Whatever the decision, it’ll be the right one if it’s rooted in Love.

There’s a difference between illusion and a vision for who we could become if we fully surrendered our lives to the God, allowing Divine mystery to have its way... with us. Illusion is me at 10 years old, gazing through the pages of celebrity magazines, imagining myself living a life of glamour and fame, and being deeply satisfied and happy because of it. Illusion is me as an adult imagining happiness based on any kind of physical perfection or any external circumstance. The vision we carry within our spirits is different. When we allow the passion of Divine love and light to awaken us in any way, we can’t ever go back to not seeing what we now understand is larger truth than what we knew before. I laugh a little at Myss’ words about expecting passion to behave like a polite house guest. This hit home for me because I can pray passionately for clarity, but I don’t always appreciate the experience that enters my life containing the clarity I need. I want God to just download the information painlessly into my head, but I’ve learned it takes the experience of challenge to plant the clarity and understanding I need more deeply within my heart and spirit. When passion is rooted in the spiritual, it has the power to awaken us to possibilities and alwaysno exceptionsit will have something to do with Love and the power of Love to bring healing into our own lives and into the lives of others. When we can imagine ourselves as channels for grace, pointing others to the holy light of God and the hope and possibilities it brings, then we’ve imagined the best of who we can be. And if we stay tuned into the God who is present within us, we’ll be shown how our passion can manifest in the reality of this world. We may be surprised by what we learn; we may discover creative parts of ourselves waiting to be given voice in a way we hadn’t even thought of. Healing and Light and Love enter this world in countless of ways. It remains for us to discoverwith the help of Godhow we are part of that. With God, there’s never just one right way of doing something. This is the Creator of the Universe, the origin of every creative impulse we have. This God’s direction can be trusted.

We can spend a lot of time wishing we were someplace other than where we are. We can wish for a different location, different work, different weather. Underlyin...g this need is the belief life would be better if only we were someplace else. This may, in fact, be true, for we may need a new location in order to begin again, but we may not. Changing locations won’t change us, so it’s important to discern if a physical move is actually needed or a shift in our perspective. This is really challenging for when we feel that inner pressure to do somethinganythingin order to get relief, it’s hard to even want to go through a process of discernment. It’s hard to quiet our longing enough to gain the clarity we need to see through the emotion to the issue underlying it. It’s important to try, though, lest we make a quick decision and uproot our lives, only to discover after we worked through the issue, we made a mistake. The need to be elsewhere often arises when we have trouble accepting life as it is. If we need to change something, that’s okay, but always from a place of clarity and grace, where we sense God’s leading, keeping us on our highest path. We should never be driven along by emotions not grounded in reason and spirit, for emotions in and of themselves aren’t indicators of the truth. When we’re at a place of restlessness and longing for something other or something more, we need to ask for the grace of clarity, and then trust the answer will be given at the right time. We need to ask for God’s help in quieting our minds so we’re able to recognize the guidance when it’s given. We can feel comfortable taking our jumbled thoughts and emotions to God and saying ‘Herehelp me sort through this mess’then trust God will help pull us up to see the larger picture of our lives. From this place of grace, we’ll then know what to do.

Every one of us has painful memories of some event, a memory of when we were hurt or when we hurt others, a memory of when we think we failed at something, a me...mory of loss and grief. Even if it happened a long time ago, something can occur that triggers the memory, bringing it into the present, with emotions as powerful as ever. If we have trouble recognizing the common bond between all humanityindeed, all of lifesurely we can see that suffering is something we all understand. No one gets to leave this planet without experiencing suffering. This alone should make us able to look at those with whom we feel no bond, and see there a brother or sister who probably, if given the chance, would understand our pain. We might not agree with each other because different things are important to different people, but if we could set aside our need to tell others why they’re wrong and try to connect through our shared suffering, we might discover we’re capable of greater compassion than we thought. We might also learn to see others as those on a journey as we are, made in the image of God, instead of seeing them through our own frustration and need to be right. We’re not to carry the past with us but it is a powerful teacher. It’s possible to use the pain from past events to help us reach through our shadow impulses that make us want to disconnect from others, and instead, allow the spiritual beings we are to connect to the spiritual beings others also are. This is how we redeem our sufferingwe use the experience of it to shape us into more compassionate people of grace. When pain from the past remains unhealed, we maywithout knowinginflict this pain on others, whether through words or refusal to act in compassionate ways. This is why seeking to heal ourselves may well be one of the most important things we ever do. When our own suffering takes us deeper into the grace of God, then we become channels for that grace. There’s no greater gift we can give.

This is, I think, one of the hardest lessons to learn in life, and it’s one that trips me up over and over again. I no sooner awaken more to the love within and... around methat I’m not only made to love but made of Loveand then all the craziness of ordinary life intervenes and this memory of the sacredness I carry within begins to fade. I get caught up in all the struggles of life and forget to be grateful for the fact I can draw breath. This past week I had a health scare and yesterday saw a doctor. After the doctor and I talked and I sat there waiting to receive an EKG (which was perfect, by the way), I faced the fear within me that I could be facing another major health challenge. And I wondered, would it be terminal? I thought back over my cancer journey, when I was facing death, and I realized, I already know how to do this. Even if it’s a ‘bad’ diagnosis, I already know how to do this. And I found myself in prayer. The only thing that made sense of my cancer journey was the presence of God in it, and the amazing ways God taught me all through that journey. So, I lifted my fear to Godagainand asked only to learn what this experience could teach me, and surrendered the outcome to God. I was flooded with such conscious Love, expanding my awareness, lifting me out of my fear. As happened in my cancer journey, I realized how much I wanted to remain in this life and serve God, to keep growing and help support others in their journeys. It came to me how much I’d slipped into a futility about my life, how I’d stopped cherishing life and loving myself because I can no longer do what I use to. I think the long experience of the pandemic also has something to do with this, feeling more cut-off from life and community. And I think I’d been judging myself for not handling it better. I was trying to love myself in spite of my struggles, and forgot to love myself because I struggle. Once again I needed to be reminded that the fact I struggle shows I’m alive to the nuances of life, that I’m not sleeping my way through life, seeking to avoid the harder issues. What I experienced in the doctor’s office was an awakening, and I was indeed awakened, tuned in again to the preciousness of life, regardless of what form it comes in. We’re going through a particularly hard time; there’s no denying this. But the presence of God all through it is teaching us something about Love, Love that isn’t based on sameness of faith, sameness of country, sameness of opinion or anything else other than the fact we exist. We exist because we were created by the same God who is present with us still, bringing new life if only we stay awake to the power of Love to recreate us again and again. I may never find out what cause my particular strange symptoms, whether it’s signs of an actual disease or whether it was meant to awaken me. What’s important to me is that I did wake up, and began to appreciate and love life and myself all over again. It helped me see through the limitations of aging and pandemic, straight into my heart and soul, where Love was waiting to welcome me home.