Day 3 - response

Inside a tsunami raged

The crowd simply watched as I over flew into life

No one else

chose for me to continue

even when wounded and overwhelmed

No one else

made me a martyr

No one else

caused the envy of others lives

and choices to rage unchecked

My care must start with me.

Day 2 - Haiku for a friend

No one sees inner

journey of another

compassion needed

We used to wear black for a year after someone close died. 

Black as a reminder to ourselves and to all around us - the life here has died - life here is struggling to breath. 

We who grieve may look out onto the world but we can not see anything but grey tears and shards of regret.

I was so tired, so alone, so unsure - when I felt betrayed by another I over reacted - I wish I had had the wisdom to simply stay home and not try to act as if nothing was wrong. Let me wear black - let them wear black - let them wear their hearts for at least a year ... it would have been easier than the fear people showed when they could not be bothered to remember they walked with someone whose inner landscape was as brittle as the moon.

Day 1 - What is left when a hole is made

Forgiveness - Reconciliation - Confession
The empty hole is where it starts.
A path
A word
A forgotten ...
I can see the deep need only through the puzzle of what is missing
How to address a need that screams from its absence
                                     Shouts long low howls
                                     Nails on a chalk board
Seen only out of the corner of my eye
                                     late at night when fear alight

50 Days - 2014: Forgiveness

For the last three years in the spring, during a season called Eastertide, I have reflected through art on different theological issues. In 2011—Where do you find heaven? In 2012—Where do you see G-d* in the world? In 2013—What is a call to ministry? I wrestled with these traditional theological premises: afterlife, G-d, ministry, but with a twist. Instead of looking for answers in a far-away perfect, unattainable place, I asked myself, and often people around me, to engage these religious questions from an earthly perspective.

You see, Eastertide is a little known celebration in the Christian calendar, commemorating Jesus’s walking the earth for fifty days after his death. As I thought about this celebration, I wondered what Jesus, as a bodhisattva (an enlightened being of compassion), might give the world. Or, what indeed, each of us gives one another when called to expression of love.

The question I will pose for myself this year—What of forgiveness? From Easter to June 8, I will grapple, through art, with this question. I have already spent some time reflecting on the times I have missed, or simply not taken, opportunities to act out of love. I am going to wrestle with what it means to be forgiven for these and here is the human twist—I will, when possible by whatever means, ask for forgiveness from another and I will ask for forgiveness from myself. I will practice asking for compassion in part by learning to be compassionate. . . I am reminded of the beautiful Rumi poem, “out somewhere is a field beyond right doing and wrong doing, I will meet you there…”

I wonder if you might join me. If, on one or more of these days, you might engage this question for yourself in a creative way. If you might stop for a moment to reflect on forgiveness and self compassion. If you would like to share your holy wisdom as expressed in the arts, please let me know. I would gladly post your work as well. As always, peace.

Karen
(*I spell G-d with a dash to signify I cannot know the full meaning of that word.)