I often share stories from my experiences at the homeless shelter when I am touched, or inspired, or amused, or when I witness what appears to me as the miraculous. There's
so many moments available for seeing love in an environment that may appear to be completely bereft of it. But when we have the eyes to see it, it is everywhere. And often, I'm so lucky and so grateful in those moments when I do see it and feel it.
Today however, even though I still saw and felt moments of love within myself, and in the eyes, and smiles, and hugs, and laughter, and small kindnesses, and even the "I love yous" of others, my heart felt heavy. Today when
they shared their past and present stories of addiction, poverty, sickness, hunger, mental abuse, physical abuse, and even a few shocking stories of horrific torture, I got a bit lost in the feeling of the insanity of it all, and what seemed to be my crestfallen
hopelessness that the rest of the world would ever wake up to see what I see. If only... If only...
In times like this, I know enough now to always look "within"... to see that my feeling of hopelessness
is not telling me anything other than what experience is being created through me in this moment, and that I don't need to do anything about it, and even now I feel some level of profound gratitude for just being able to FEEL it... for being able to have the
full spectrum of experience of being human, but with full freedom, and without fear. How lucky and privileged am I to have even this small glimpse of understanding of the profound and miraculous nature and truth of life.
And I'm not really
sure what I wanted to share today other than to give a gentle nudge to whomever out there may be listening... to simply look "within" to get a glimpse of the truth of life, as well. And I can't tell you how to do that, it's a complete mystery, but I can tell
you with complete unwavering certainty, that you are completely whole, and never broken, and ALL that exists is "within" you... it starts and ends there. That's the only place we ever need to look. So however you can, keep somehow gently and softly and
quietly, looking there...