The Great Resuscitation
Breathing Life Back into One Another
As some look forward hopefully while others wrestle with their fears, may we each take a moment to look at our own hands understanding the power they bring to the process of healing this world.
Struggling for answers in the midst of recent events as I listen to the defenses and the debates, there is often condemnation by comparison. As I learned early as the youngest of six that will only lead everyone to their proverbial rooms with the hope that some serious self-reflection will lead all to a resolution. This last year and these past weeks we have witnessed movements, shakings, awakenings, riots and revolutions and the only equivalency I can see between them is the pain, the trauma, the wounds. I do believe love always wins, but lately it seems fear has the upper hand.
We are pointing fingers at each other without recognizing the depths into which we are piercing each other’s wound. We have begun to doubt the value of each other. We have forgotten that really, there is no other. Just as the apostle Thomas in his hesitation to believe what he was witnessing in the risen Christ; we are being called to reach in with our own hands and experience the depths of suffering we humans are willing to inflict upon each other. The pain of this human existence is real and it cuts deep.
I know I have said it before, but I truly believe that no mother holds her newborn child envisioning possibilities of addiction, homelessness, radicalization, hatred and harm. We have a responsibility to each other and to this world we live in. We must begin seeing things for what they truly are, not how we want them to be. We have to get to the core of our suffering. Just as our Mother Earth at her center is a burning mass circled in miles of magma and mantle; we have to figure out what it is that is burning and churning in our fellow human beings.
So often in a positive light, we hear of this spark, this passion that ignites this fire inside of us, but too often we fail to see how those fires can be stoked and suffocated by those who fear their own light will be diminished by another’s. Those dwindling embers struggling to stay lit find themselves in a very dark place and as they gasp for the oxygen to keep burning, hope dissipates, faith dissolves and fear takes over. In a time when this world has literally had to ration oxygen, we have to start breathing life back into each other.
A great resuscitation is required. For some the pounding and pressure to resume consciousness may require great consequences for their actions. For others the lengthening space between withering heartbeats requires trust; as the oxygen mask lowers seeking surrender to the air prescribed to save, not smother. For me, I have come to the realization that I must put my oxygen mask on first, I have to bring to this world that capacity was granted within me and utilize it in service to others. Lungs filled, heart pumping, it is our responsibility to illuminate the capacity in others by kindling grace, worthiness, value, meaning, love. That is how to stoke a fire that burns with compassion, empathy, kindness and light for all to see, especially those lost in the darkness.
As I sense my own burning emotions smoldering, I must acknowledge my own clenched fist as my index finger reaches forward ready to make its case and rise to the challenge of releasing my grip in order to witness the blood on my own hands. Did fear find its way through the flexed flesh of my fingers or did love make its way through an open palm placed gently on a wound? No matter its origin, we must begin to stop the bleeding and begin breathing. There are a thousand paths or more to heal and for each of us we must set out on this journey knowing those paths will cross and the roads will meet and there we can find each other recognizing we all had to find our way.
We will find our way. Just let love lead you on this journey.
