“The world is bathed in the goodness of God!” I insist as I read another morning of distressing national news. Wildfires burn fiercely north and west of me, thousands of children, women, and men are starving in Gaza, and a real live snake appears from under a cabinet across the room.
In addition, I read Jesus telling his disciples that he has come to cast fire upon the earth and cause division rather than peace.* What in the world?! Where is the bearer of Good News? The nonviolent exemplar? The lover of humanity and all God’s beloved creation?
I move instinctively to my prayer chair (after one of Dayspring’s caregivers comes and removes the snake to its more natural environment). Rattled, I exhale deeply into the mystery of God. At some point I consciously inhale and move back to my writing desk. I am still aware of the world’s suffering, the inexplicable, and anxiety within and all around — and also a little more grounded in the Living Presence of love.
Then I think about the disciples in Jesus’ presence. How perplexed they must have been, how anguished to hear Jesus’s anguish. It takes a lot of courage to choose the Way of Love. To be with things as they are, yet have faith and be agents of active hope and change. To embrace the power of the Holy Spirit within us as a people and planet to heal, reconcile, renew, and fulfill God-created order.
In our efforts to help, we will surely face those who think we are crazy and hopeless. Not everyone will see or want things the way we do. Sin will persist. We will meet our own shadow and limitation. And yet, may we exhale, bow, inhale, and keep on with a heart and mind of love.
-- Trish Stefanik, Overlook Retreat House at Dayspring
For More...
“The biggest gift you can give is to be absolutely present. And when you’re worrying about whether you’re hopeful or hopeless or pessimistic or optimistic, who cares? The main thing is that you’re showing up, that you’re here, and that you’re finding ever more capacity to love this world because it will not be healed without that.”
Listen to this inspiring interview with Joanna Macy (1929-2025), environmental activist, Buddhist scholar, author, and root teacher of The Work That Reconnects.
