Rock Me With Your Grace
Trust your wound to a teacher's surgery.
Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,
those flies of your self-protecting feelings,
your love for what you think is yours.
Let a teacher wave away the flies
and put a plaster on the wound.
Don't turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandaged wound. That's where
the light enters you.
And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself.
Rumi
Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,
those flies of your self-protecting feelings,
your love for what you think is yours.
Let a teacher wave away the flies
and put a plaster on the wound.
Don't turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandaged wound. That's where
the light enters you.
And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself.
Rumi
What would it mean for us to just let our pain be? To just let the wound be? It might be a physical pain, or a feeling of loneliness or anger that has been around for a while and taken up residence in your body. What would it be like to actually be with our pain?
Recently, I had a nagging ache in my right side. I poked it, prodded it, obsessed about it and diagnosed it via Wed MD- my personal favorite (and I was wrong, of course.) Finally, my massage therapist and intuitive friend said, "Just back off. Don't do anything to this part of your body, it just needs to heal on it's own." Wow, what a concept. In our culture, we learn to avoid pain at all costs and many of us do. Alcohol. Drugs. Sugar. Over-medicating. Busyness. Getting involved in other's people's business. I never really learned how to befriend pain, let alone like Rumi says believe that it's "where the light enters you." I tend to go running, screaming from those places. Or freeze with fear.
This morning, I got on my knees and started praying. God, help me to not fear dying. God, help me to be open hearted. God, help me to stay close to you. Blah, blah, blah. And then I heard from within, "Look Jenny, if you are going to take one minute with me this morning, just rest in me. Breathe me in. Be with me. Let me love you. I already know your list of demands. I knew them before they entered you. Let it go and be with my Love. Let me rock you with my Grace." Simply put, we don't have to try so hard.
As Rumi says, "Don't turn your head. Look at the bandaged wound." Well, now, that's a start.
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