Postscript to Istanbul and toenails

I was touched by the many responses to my homily-- my first, no less!

First off for those you concerned about my feet they have healed. The former baby toe nails have been replaced by perhaps a temporary version. Curiously they are distinctly wavy! Perhaps they will return to their former smoothness or maybe I will be left with a reminder of a potent shearing away.

It is easy to get caught up in the suffering of others, in this case mine. To feel bad or sorry for them, to identify with the storyline, to try to fix something and thereby miss something very important.

Shearing away of my spiritual sentimentality was an opening. Any shearing away is painful. But the question is whether we fall prey to turning the shearing away of ego layers into a story of suffering, something to be told and retold and something which engenders sympathy. This is all too human. But something vital is missed. The question is whether the shearing away opens into greater freedom, greater spaciousness, greater realness or whether it becomes another in the storehouse of good stories to tell.

In my recent reflections (my previous post) I ended with my sensing an opening to the 'yes' of the heart. This 'yes' is a deep and growingly unconditional love of the truth, as difficult as that may be. But the fruits are so sweet, so tender, so empty and ultimately so mysterious. In this journey of inner transformation it is possible that the grist of suffering becomes the fuel-- literally-- for an alchemical combustion. In the heating up, in the friction of the shearing away, the story line of suffering, the self pity of the victimhood, the drama of it all, is burned away. And when the ash blows away, space begins to breathe and wake up. The heart begins its quiet song of 'yes', 'yes', 'yes'. I have noticed this subtle arching back in my chest as though my heart wants to offer herself up in surrender, in sacrifice to this burning fire of love, masquerading as suffering. 

I visited the Shrine to Julian of Norwich during my recent visit. She lived during the Black Death. She reports saying God spoke to her these famous words: All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. 

There is such deep hope in these words. I carried her spirit with my during my travels.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_of_Norwich