This is to let subscribers to this Welcome to Virgin Territory blog know what I’m doing. Or at least as I’m trying to figure it out, I thought I’d let you in on my process. A new blog of mine, “Clothed With the Sun, Feet on the Ground,” is where I’m starting to get back to doing what I used to be pretty good at — before I turned into a reactionary, screaming angry harridan who internalized all those feelings, moved to Mexico, got embroiled with countless health issues and almost checked out. What I was pretty good at back before I got sidetracked by all that was finding a spiritual perspective on daily life.
Although the recent craziness in the U.S. capital has nudged me back toward the angry harridan position, I am refusing to go. I insist, dang it, that I will draw on those Inner Guadalupe virgin qualities, take refuge in virginity — innate wholeness, sanity, and steadfast presence of Mind. (OK, I’m repeating this to myself, reminding myself. It’s a constant process.) My true treasure — my ability to love life and live love — remains pure and intact. No one in Washington can touch that.
I’m not quite up to loving my fellow beings on the political scene. Maybe because I’m still American and they’re like, well, family. You expect a lot more from your family, and it hurts more when they hurt you.
I’m reminded of a story I heard as a jail chaplain. Two inmates shared a cell. Each felt they were in jail because of betrayal and false charges by someone close to them, one by an employer, the other by a brother-in-law. After “getting religion” they each knew that love and forgiveness were key elements toward winning their freedom — freedom on so many levels. But each felt incapable of loving or forgiving the person close to them.
“So, why don’t I take on sending love and light to your brother-in-law, and you send love and light to my @#$%* boss?” one asked the other one day.
“Agreed,” came the reply. “I don’t know your @#$% boss, but he can’t be as bad as my @#$%. brother-in-law. I’ll be happy to send him love and light.” So they did. And it wasn’t long before both the @#$%s had rethought their stories and all charges were dropped against the two cellmates.
I’m wondering if that can’t work on an international level. Maybe I should ask my Canadian friends to send a little love and light to our U.S. Congress and President. I, in the meantime, will take on the drug violence in Mexico. And that’s where “Clothed with the Sun, Feet on the Ground” is headed. I’m making that blog a frequent practice in sending love and light to that particular situation. I invite you to join me there, and on the corresponding Facebook page put up by my friend Chris Raymond, Corazon a Corazon – A Spiritual Defense of Mexico. That’s an open page, which means if you have a little love and light to lend you can post it yourself. Heart to heart, we’ll get through all this.
* Did you catch the * after the @#$%? I decided to use @#$% because all profanity is either sexist, racist, unintelligible or unimaginative. This way you can create your own.