The San Francisco Bay Area, like many other places, has been bombarded with challenges: a pandemic and its resulting job losses, now followed by raging fires and evacuation. Of course, I long to help. Fret over how to help. Feel overwhelmed by the suffering.
My spiritual message this morning was inspired by this line from Eric Nelson’s testimony about healing in next week’s Christian Science Sentinel: “Healing does not begin with a problem, or a desire to fix a problem, but with God’s blessing.”
Begin by feeling Love’s love for each of us, for all living things. (Let go of mental arguing about why bad things happen to good people. You don’t need to know the answer to feel Love loving. Just feel Love loving.) Know that Love touches other people - right where they are--and brings peace, stability, clarity, direction. Know that Love is caring for you. Feel the reality of this.
With this foundation, we will see inspired ways to help. We will not impose help to ease our own anxiety. (In uninspired help, we sometimes complicate the tasks of experts trying to do their jobs. We inadvertently ask people who are struggling to take care of us - to acknowledge our generosity and worth. We might use grand gestures of care to avoid taking care of something in our own lives for which we are responsible.) Beginning with the awareness of the active presence of Blessing, we can more gracefully accept care given to us. We can be attuned to those moments of service in which Love moves uniquely through us.