Dear brothers and sisters:
My life is my light;
Please do not steal my light;
Do not extinguish my light;
This is not your right.
Instead, bring your candle to the table
Which you have made of your human needs and humble confessions.
We will sit down and break bread together in peace.
We will speak together as family, and we will listen minutely to each other.
Patiently.
But before we do, I will gladly give you the light you seek
If I have it and you do not.
It burns for you and for me and for us all.
Tomorrow I may come seeking from you
And I trust you will do the same.
[Unknown origin]
Thank you for this, Doris!
I find myself going through some experience of 'victimhood,' seemingly a relic of my childhood, from the simple parental domination of my choices... nothing really terrible on the part of my parents, but a repression in me, nonetheless. My experience is of reaching a place of collapse and tears, and sometimes of feeling frozen, 'stunned,' just completely stopped from any experience whatsoever.
From this poem, noticing how much light children generally have automatically, realizing how even well-intentioned parents can dominate their children's natural light, my own experience is rising to the surface, where I am doing my best to meet it from a GODMothering place. I am beginning to feed myself light and strength, to welcome these 'normal' wounds into that place as well.
The name of this poem... 'prayer for the human family'... seems particularly relevant.
Much love and gratitude, Jeanie
From: Richard Rohr's message today, by Mary Mrozowski:
Set aside some quiet time alone to try this practice. Begin by becoming aware of how your body feels. Notice any tension or pain. After a few moments of silence, read the following intention aloud prayerfully:
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I welcome everything that comes to me in this moment
because I know it is for my healing.
I welcome all thoughts, feelings, emotions,
persons, situations and conditions.
I let go of my desire for security.
I let go of my desire for affection.
I let go of my desire for control.
I let go of my desire to change any
situation, condition,
person, or myself.
I open to the love and presence of God and
the healing action and grace within. [1]
Holding this intention lightly, identify a hurt or an offense, something or someone who has hurt you or let you down recently or in the past.
- Feel the pain of the offense the way you first felt it, or are feeling it in this moment, and notice the hurt in your body. Why is this important? Because if you move it to your mind, you will go back to dualistic thinking and judgments: good guy/bad guy, win/lose, either removed link
- Feel the pain so you don’t create the win/lose scenario. Identify yourself with the suffering side of life; how much it hurt to hurt; how abandoned you felt to be abandoned.
- Once you can move to that place and know how much it hurts to hurt, you could not possibly want that experience for anybody else.
- This might take a few minutes. Welcome the experience, and it can move you to the Great Compassion. Don’t fight it. Don’t split and blame. Welcome the grief and anger in all of its heaviness. Now it will become a great teacher.
- If you can do this you will see that it is welcoming the pain and letting go of all of your oppositional energy that actually frees you from it! Who would have thought? It is our resistance to things as they are that causes most of our unhappiness—at least I know it is for me.
[1] Mary Mrozowski, “The Welcoming Prayer.” More information about the history and practice of this prayer is available at <a style="text-decoration: underline; color: #41b2ba;" href=" removed link " target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl=" removed link ;source=gmail&ust=1566130704037000&usg=AFQjCNE3XFZPrEf_nHjZ1Dy0lxN2_koXcg"> removed link contemplativeoutreach.org/welcoming-prayer.
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