Hampton Roads Network For Nonviolence
Thoughts of Peace And Love
12/4/2004
Submitted by Linda Douglas
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We are Made for these Times!
by Clarissa
Pinkola Estes
Mis
estimados:
Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They
are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now.
You are right in your assessments. The lustre and
hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children,
elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking.
Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please
not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not
lose hope. Most particularly, because, the fact is we were made for these times.
Yes.
For years, we have been learning, practicing,
been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.
I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a
seaworthy vessel when I see one.
Regarding awakened souls, there have never been
more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And
they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the
history of humankind...
Look out over the prow; there are millions of
boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may
shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers
composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest.
That long-grained lumber is known to withstand
storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
We have
been in training for a dark time such as this.
For decades, souls just like us have been felled
and left for dead in so many ways, over and over... brought down by naivete, by
lack of love, being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal
shocks in the extreme... We have a history of being gutted, and yet --remember
this especially-- "we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of
resurrection."
Over and over again we have been the living proof
that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered can be restored to life
again.
In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer
toward fainting over how much is wrong or untended in the world. Do not focus on
that.
There is a tendency too to fall into persevering
on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That
is spending the wind without raising the sails.
We are needed, that is all we can know. And
though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us,
love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear.
Didn't you say you were a believer?
Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice
greater?
Didn't you ask for grace?
Don't you remember that to be in grace means to
submit to the voice greater?
Understand the paradox:
If you study the physics of a waterspout, you
will see that the outer vortex whirls far more quickly than the inner one.
To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer,
to cause it to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner
core-- "till whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back
to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again."
One of the most important steps you can take to
help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of
overwrought emotion or desperation, thereby accidentally contributing to the
swell and the swirl.
Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world,
all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within
our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to
assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.
It is not given to us to know which acts, or by
whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is
needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts; adding, adding to, adding
more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to
bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up
during the first, second, or hundredth gale!
One of the most calming and powerful actions you
can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on
deck shines like gold in dark times.
The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up
flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the
lantern of soul in shadowy times like these "to be fierce and to show mercy
toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity."
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to
show it.
If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one
of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel
discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a
chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know
something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why
you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say
and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One
who brought us here.
In that spirit, I hope you will write this on
your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be
no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
This comes with much love and prayer that you
remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth...
- Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D