6 Minutes 51 Seconds
It’s hard to know what to do sometimes.
My mind gets so overwhelmed with thoughts, feelings, emotions, and a never-ending “to do” list.
Add to that a community in crisis, people being traumatized right and left, and I want to help, but I seem to zoom past flight and fright and go straight to freeze.
I grew up Catholic – the go to church every Sunday and stay for coffee and doughnuts, 12 years of Catholic schools, held a job as a housekeeper cook for priests, taught Faith Formation, sang in the choir, paid attention to the homily, was a confirmation sponsor Catholic. I tried atheism for a couple weeks a couple of times but always came back to a belief in an omnipotent creator.
“Nothing” never resonated with me. Also, I couldn’t get past the internal knowing that Jesus walked the earth. Stories about him have survived for over 2000 years!
What pulled me away from religion was manyfold. I don’t really care to go into it all here and now because it’s not the point of this writing. You can probably guess some of the reasons as I am not the first to walk away from religion, and I won’t be the last. (However, if you are interested in the book that I resonated with as I was defining what I believe and what I don’t believe, check out Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch.)
What Catholicism did instill in me is an appreciation of mysticism and angels (very handy for when they started communicating with me!), some catchy tunes, which still get stuck in my head to this day, and being of service to the community.
When I experienced my “awakening” (which is a somewhat inaccurate term, but the closest anyone has come up with to what happens when you become aware of things you didn’t notice before – or perhaps noticed, but new context helps them make sense), I felt more Christian, based on Jesus’ teachings than I ever felt before.
I realized that WE ARE ALL ONE.
So, Marty Haugen wrote this hymn:
We are many parts
We are all one body
And the gifts we have
We are given to share...
Since Renee Nicole Good was shot about 20 miles away from my house, this song has been a daily earworm. Twin Cities, the state of Minnesota, and even Western Wisconsin, from reports I’ve seen, are in a state of constant stress. Like – not just being chased by one saber toothed tiger, but a pack of saber-toothed tigers, and pterodactyls above, and fire ants below kind of stress.
People want to help. I WANT TO HELP, but there’s a fine line between helping and inflaming things when emotions are running high, and triggers and traumas are aplenty. There have been enough broken windows, pepper spray incidents, jumpy trigger-fingers resulting in injury and death, and all the “what comes next”.
What can I do?
Well, there’s a blood shortage and I am a blood donor. I found a donation site near me and went to donate blood. It took 6 minutes and 51 seconds for them to get a pint of my liquid gold into a bag to save a life. It took longer to drive there. I took longer to fill out the paperwork and tell them a dozen times that I don’t have AIDS or hepatitis or a current pregnancy. It took longer to sit at the snack table afterward with a juice box and a granola bar than it did to drip my life-saving blood into a bag.
There are people who need food, toiletries, and household basics, and there are places to donate such items.
There are prayer circles, singing protests, art to do and to support – all of which raise the collective vibration to LOVE.
Recognizing that we are all ONE. We are made of the same stardust. We have that light of creation WITHIN us is what we need to put aside our differences.
Remember how the Grinch grew his heart 3 sizes? That was because Cindy Lou and the Whos saw that he was a SOUL just like them – and they offered him LOVE.
Offer love. Accept love. Watch our hearts grow 3 sizes!
