Monday, April 27, 2020

How do I hug the wind?





















"The answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind..."

Several Nova Scotia readers have told me of their tears for the carnage that was wrought here in the province several days ago. Indeed when one thinks of the lives lost, the suffering of those who loved them, family, and community members, the experience is devastating. And of course, the backdrop to this horror is Covid19 and its threatening presence to each of us. Tears indeed, sometimes I think even God cries.

Thus, I need to pray but that will be as hard as hugging the wind in this heaviness of spirit.  How do I become the prayer? I will be lost if I follow such tragedy down its steep slopes with my conventional heart, thought, and mind. I can't clunk around in this dense solidity called skin and bone which feels at zero frequency in the moment. I know the feeling is the prayer and this isn't it. After all, the frequency of the vibration does create the nature of the particle - plus or minus. And, mine is the latter.

I do have to go somewhere else, invite those elevated feelings that wait in that deeper caring of spaciousness with its seeing beyondness -- that inner vibration for prayer with its compassion, healing, and the peace that truly does pass all understanding -- possibly better known in the Christian scripture as the balm of Gideon.  

Is the answer in the wind -- that east wind, that south wind? I love it and know it as a companion. This divine wind that tips me on my toes and roars through this roof every few minutes in perfect timing, which makes me jump as I write. Its invisible power invites me to bow my head in reverence and reminds me of a childhood poem by Christina Rossetti.

Who has seen the wind,
neither you nor I,
but when the trees bow down their heads
the wind is passing by.

"And you think of it only as wind?", my ancient friend observed wisely. Then I did and now, like the tree, I also bow my head. Prayer transforms this solid density.  The divine, by whatever name, meets me.  I lift my hand, place on a little leaf, my compassion, caring, and the feel of a peace that is a balm for such suffering. The wind takes each on their way. And, on arrival at the doorsteps of their destinations, some broken hearts may feel a holy breeze and say, "Oh look, a little leaf ...

How do I hug the wind and know it's hugging me? Of course, the answer my friend is blowing in the wind, the answer is blowing in the wind..."