Sunday November 9: Disquieting Places

• Consider this poem, “The Place Where We Are Right,” by Yehuda Amichai (translated by Chana Bloch and Stephen Mitchell):

From the place where we are right

flowers will never grow

in the spring. 

The place where we are right

is hard and trampled

like a yard. 

But doubts and loves

dig up the world

like a mole, a plow. 

And a whisper will be heard in the place

where the ruined

house once stood.

• Pray this prayer, written by William Brodrick, every day this week: 

We have to be candles,
burning between hope and despair,
faith and doubt,
life and death,
all the opposites.
That is the disquieting place
where people must always find us.
And if our life means anything …
and does some good
it is that somehow,
by being here
at peace,
we help the world cope
with what it cannot understand.

• Living amid disquieting news and dualistic reactions to complex questions can create tensions in our bodies. In is worthwhile to engage in some type of body work to ease that tension. This week, you might try taking a long walk, getting a massage, or participating in a tai chi or yoga class.
• In conversations and relationships where strong differences arise, where we struggle to retain relationship with Creator who loves and connects us all, Kaira Jewel Lingo offers several Buddhist practices. For example, when we recognize a strong or painful emotion rising, we can “accept it, and then embrace it like a loving adult would holds a crying baby (emphasis added). As we do this, our emotion settles down and we are able to look deeply into [it] to understand it at its root in the deeper layers of our mind. [Like the Welcoming Prayer, this kind of practice] leads us to insight and gradual transformation of habit patterns that keep us stuck in reactivity, fear and anger” (We Were Made for These Times, ch. 5).

If you wish, you may re-read the full email reflection here: https://mailchi.mp/coutreach/2025_word-of-the-week-nov9

 

Kaira Jewel Lingo’s suggested Buddhist practice is a new perspective for living with strong emotions. Can I “accept it, and then embrace it like a loving adult would hold a crying baby.”? Admittedly, my strongest emotions behave similarly to a child with a bad case of colic. I will take this image to heart as I continue navigating strong emotions. <3 linda

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