I have had this week what I will name a providential experience. For sometime now, I have been noticing that something has not been working in my life as I have been a bit more cranky than usual.
On Monday night, I went to bed sitting with my cranky behaviour, wondering what is going on. Then I awoke to find a special email sent by Richard Rohr, a US Franciscan and spiritual writer, to all following him. As I read it, I could not believe how he was speaking to me. I was jst dumbfounded. So what's going on?
I've got it right that control does not work. I've got it right that taking responsibility matters but that is where I begin to go down the wrong path as I am focusing too much on doing which is giving rise to unhealthy expectations.
There is one expectation that I can hold - respect of self. The rest can go out the window.
I place this in the context of the present pandemic. While I hear and read of all the suffering and see and know it, my overriding experience is to find this pandemic freeing. I do not want to minimalize. Sometimes I even feel guilty as I hear ones talk about their experience, then they ask me and I sound so positive or upbeat. Reality is that my unplanned experience of this time is summed up in three words that have naturally come to me. They are extraordinary, grace filled and freeing.
I ask myself. Am I cruel? No! Am I mad? I don't think so. Am I just different? Maybe.
I have always believed in the dictum that through chaos comes new life, needed change. Now I get to live my held theory and it is working. This is just the way it is.
These times take their toll. Change does not come easily. Transformative change much less so.
I go back to where I started. Something has not been working. In the midst of all that is happening at this time of the pandemic, I need to be more in touch with my spiritual side and less focused on doing. That was the very message of Richard Rohr as he shared his gained insight with the world.
Amazing! The world is a small place.
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