“The cross we bear is truth.” – Matt McKinley
There are days when this vessel in which I reside grows weary—worn down from the weight of so much destruction. The mass murders committed minute by ticking minute across the world, the relentless diabolical intent to poison, maim, and control we mortal human beings seems too much to bear at times. These feelings usually lurk in the background for I haven’t yet mastered the state of holy human; perhaps this is both the gift and curse of waking within this mortal realm. How do we bear the unbearable?Recently I was brought to my metaphorical knees—be honest for we, more often than not, feel helpless when confronting a situation that appears hopeless. A woman recently came into my little shop for a consultation, it is she that forced me face to face again with how horribly broken a soul can be. She was in abject despair, shaken and shattered to her core. I sat silent as sobs racked her body and tears poured out of her eyes with the glittery manicured nails on her hands covering her face in shame. The only certainty I had was that she was child of some horrible abuse, lost, alone, abandoned with nowhere to turn or run. What always surprises me about people like her is that they have gotten through life thus far. Yet… one detects the shadowy cling of eternal victimhood that would rather take someone down with them than rise themselves. It’s a tricky affair.
The juxtaposition of her situation with the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people, the losses and horrors they endure every day compared to a privileged Western woman whose pain was self consuming—consumed by her sense of a vanished unloved self was difficult to observe. That a whole nation of people is bearing the slaughter of family and loved ones with what I can only call dignity seems as far apart from this well fed woman with more than she actually needs to thrive allowing herself to wallow in self pity.
And then the total impact hit me, of just how traumatized people are, it swirls in ever deepening darkness—a vortex that wants to consume all who approach its center. Staring straight into the storm takes a heart and mind forged on the fires of the holy anvil.
Sitting silently, feeling the pull of this great dark mass comes a sudden uplifting of conscious awareness. I, mortal body, aware is transported on a gleaming silver thread to a most ethereal sense of being where I is simply i am.
She hovers in this awareness where the vast field of the all somehow transfers a knowing that each piece; the shattered, the confused, the blind, the bound, the tortured, the dead and dying are all part of the whole in this dualistic realm—all are holy. She questions herself, can she help? Answers come in the whisper of wings, flutters of love lifting her higher still. She is but this whisper and it is by Grace yet to be realized that has the power to transform, this she prays.
To accompany her household chores she chooses a video to listen to. She’s been riveted to what is happening in Palestine since October 7th, she can’t stop watching, she chooses to not turn away. This morning’s video brought her to full focus as the story of Amir played out on her screen. This little boy, now murdered by the child-killer’s bullets became the single focus of all that is truly holy in a human being. And all that is evil playing out in this world. Real tears rose from her center and a solitary one escapes to slowly run down her cheek. [Video link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUs1cmI1gxc.]
Amir‘s story is featured toward the end of the above video report, the whole video is worth watching—for me it needs to watched. In this short clip Amir fully reveals the purity of a child’s heart. This holy child that remains buried under rubble within most human’s souls. In spite of daily horrors, walking twelve kilometers to find some discarded bags of food he thanks the man who was sent to his land to further humiliate and mutilate his people. This child filled my soul with both sorrow and joy—one solitary small boy bearing the Holy Light—the true essence in every living being.
I pray, oh! human, oh, holy human where has thou gone?
Amir – Arabic origin “Prince, Ruler, Treetop – Elevated and Eloquent – Immortal”
