As I sink into meditation today, I am thinking about my friend the state delegate who is running for Congress. I think about the challenge of the task she has accepted and Spirit immediately says that she is a healer standing in the broken space of our governing body.
No sooner do I receive those words than I see how many of my friends fit that description—my friend the climate justice activist who works at a Catholic university, my friend the teacher, my friend the racial healer, my friend the wildlife conservationist—all of them standing in the turmoil of the dysfunctional institutions of our planet, being and holding light.
It’s hard.
This is a hard position to hold—to accept that we belong down here in the trenches, immersed in the struggle. And yet it makes so much sense. The monasteries, the retreats, the quiet spaces of our world already hold enough light. Our light is not needed in those spaces, however much they call to us. Out light is needed in the painful fractured places of this beleaguered planet. How better could we serve?
I know, I know. I too want out. I long for the day I will be set free of my day job, free to play in the light with those who are seeking the path of their own healing (and I don’t mean after we have all left our bodies!) That is the comparatively easier work.
“It’s alright,” Spirit says. “It’s alright. This is what you came here to do.”
I don’t think it gets easier, but we are strong enough for this work. We are the world healers, the world shapers. We point the way to humanity’s future. Hard as this path is, it’s worth it. I would not amend my decision to be here now, nor I suspect, would you.
I look out across the planet—so many pillars of love shining in the middle of the chaos. I am so grateful for each and every one of you.
