Finding Grace on Shifting Sand

We’re inhabiting a time when our equilibrium, life as we understand it, has moved onto shifting sand. In fact, with the proportion of turmoil out there, it’s feeling a bit biblical . . . plague, pestilence and scourge in the form of a new virus and its profound fallout: fear of the unknown, a frantic search for safety, trust and balance, and a most prodigious display of human-made and bravely-endured chaos. We are craving answers and solutions to problems we’ve yet to even fully understand.

Thanks to the world’s intelligent scientists, selfless, hard-working medical professionals and pockets of resourceful leadership, we have some life-saving physical health answers. But what about reassuring answers to soothe our emotional and spiritual selves . . . solutions to help us feel more safe, to provide comfort today while offering hopeful ideas for a tomorrow where we can feel less anxious about the health of family, friends and institutions important to us, as well as about our ever-fluctuating finances. All those hoped-for answers seem mired within the same shifting sand we navigate daily. What to do. Where to turn.

**********************************************************************

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure,

to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

(B. Okri, Nigerian poet and novelist)

**********************************************************************

I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and here’s my truth: all my very best answers, helping me move into stronger and healthier emotional, mental and spiritual spaces, come from within, from listening to the quiet whispers of my own heart, spirit and soul.

Outside solutions are just that . . . outside. And though offered with the best intentions, each of those answers stem from others’ experiences, needs and hopes. They can serve to help me gather possibilities, and, make no mistake, some offer wonderful, temporary suggestions. But none of them can bring me lasting peace, because they didn’t come from inside me . . . from the soulful core of beliefs that belong to me.

I’m soul-searching again. You know what I mean . . . creating those times with eyes closed, hearing our own breath as we breathe deeply, feeling a soothing silence enfold us when our busy minds finally quiet to let us begin to be aware of the divine, within and around us. In that sacred space, sensing the still, small voice, we’re able to cut through all the extraneous noise and begin to feel all those messages of infinite trust and hope that belong to us.

“You are loved;” “you are safe” “be kind” “be patient” “love one another” “be in gratitude” my soul tells me.

When you sense your own soulful messages, count them as your truth, your answers, your way to balance on today’s shifting sand.

I am grateful for each of you, because, together, we are the answers.

Jane