Attacks

The sky is cloudy and rain has arrived as predicted. The temperature is 54 degrees fahrenheit. Today is Wednesday. We are into the third day of a new year.

Things keep showing up that tell us we need to act with a measure of urgency. There is no time to waste.

The increase in the actions people are taking to destroy things are showing up in many places - from the war theaters across the globe, to the most elite institutions on the planet. The attacks just keep on coming. Race and racism continue to sit at the center of much of what is happening. Those who are not in the direct line of fire, literally or figuratively, are witnesses. And, as one friend asked last night, "What do we do with all the knowledge we have? We know what's wrong. We know what to do. So why show up again, and again for the same issue or problem? Nothing is changing."

And yet, everything is changing. There are more lands being destroyed, more lives being lost, more complexity being created in our desire to preserve that which we know and cherished for generations, whether it was cruel or not to others. We want to keep the material, and are losing the eternal. The eternal being our capacity to care for one another, to share what resources we have to help with the problems that need to be solved with money. We need to find less value in money and more value in relations among human beings who are, in fact, just like us - just like our own families. The blindness is almost complete, judging from what is happening in societies around the world.

Why show up again and again for the same problem that doesn't seem to change? The question had to be asked because people who still have some vision need resilience to recover from attacks of every kind. It is a skill that must be honed. This skill (capacity for resilience) must become more and more refined so that when the attacks happen, the return to center is instantaneous - so there is no wasting time.

It can be a focus for training oneself, physically and emotionally. Ultimately, it is a training of one's spiritual capacity – to return again and again to the suffering that human beings cannot seem to stop themselves from inflicting on the world.

The lens has to shift. Seeing the attacks on every level as a chance to engage in spiritual training is how one will do her part in the times in which we live. There is no sitting back. There is no time to lose. There must be such depth of understanding about what is truly essential and eternal, that one must find a way to engage, rest, re-engage, yield, re-engage, and celebrate the moments when the light comes through to show where the path is open - then move into action, again!

The attacks are another kind of invitation to find the right vibration. The vibration of life.