Meditation Moment in Eastertide: Friday, Week 7 '23

Life is not the way 

it's supposed to be. 

It's the way it is. 

The way you deal with it

is what makes the difference.

~ Virginia Satir*

                                                                    

    How many times, after something awful has happened, have I heard ~ and said ~ "it's just not fair; that shouldn't have happened; it's not the way it's supposed to be," especially when those something awfuls have happened in my life. But yet I can't remember ever saying ~ or hearing ~ those words when something spectacularly good has happened. How IS life supposed to be? We are born through no fault of our own, we grow up, go to school, work, marriage or not, divorce or not, kids (or not), loved ones die, and there are tragedies...and all the other stuff that happens good and bad until...we die.
                  

  So, God of All That's Supposed to Be, I don't really believe in "Fate," I believe in "Stuff Happens," and that some days, weeks, months, years are better than others, some are less better and some are plain awful. I know what to do in the good times, but I need Your help in the not-so-wonderful moments. I want to be able to quickly accept the reality of a moment, however crazy, difficult, or tragic, and find a practical way forward ~ to have a sort of spare tire plan. I've already had quite a bit of very ordinary, very lovely, and very difficult life experience. Looking back and realizing my initial shock when the sudden blowouts have hit, I can remember only fragments of those first moments, and now I understand that it takes time to find my footing. With my car, having a spare tire gives me a precious first step toward a measured, if shaky, response about what to do next.

   Of course, I can't possibly predict or plan for every eventuality but with Your help, a lot of deep breathing, even more attention to You with a regular conversation like this one (that is really my way of prayer), I'll have a spare tire attitude ready for almost anything. I will work on not blaming myself wondering what I might have done differently when things happen that I cannot control. The best part is that I always have You to lean on through every day.  amen.

*Virginia Satir was an American author and psychotherapist specializing in family therapy. Her role play formats in family reconstruction and family sculpting among other aspects of her work have been widely used and she received many honors within her profession.  She often used meditation and poetry in her written work and lectures. The following, one of her best known pieces, was written in response to angry teen-aged girl but is certainly useful for us all:

I am me

In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me

Everything that comes out of me is authentically me

Because I alone chose it – I own everything about me

My body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions,

Whether they be to others or to myself – I own my fantasies,

My dreams, my hopes, my fears – I own all my triumphs and

Successes, all my failures and mistakes Because I own all of

Me, I can become intimately acquainted with me – by so doing

I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts – I know

There are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other

Aspects that I do not know – but as long as I am

Friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously

And hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles

And for ways to find out more about me – However I

Look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever

I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically

Me – If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought

And felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is

Unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that

Which I discarded – I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do

I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be

Productive to make sense and order out of the world of

People and things outside of me – I own me, and

therefore I can engineer me – I am me and

I AM OKAY

Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ’This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as [you love] yourself.” ~ Matthew 22:37-39

 

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