Being Human

As I sit at this newly installed desk (confirmation that I am here indefinitely) in the guest room of my sister’s home in California, I realize we have all been swinging inside such a wide spectrum of feelings. I just read that my flight home has been cancelled. The airline offered no further information about what happens next, but suggested a visit to their offices, which are closed. I have been living with this conundrum for days. Should I go, stay, when, how…all that, and found myself strangely relieved that in one fell swoop, the impossibility of flying took the burden of decision right out of my hands.

I am beyond grateful I am living through this with my sister’s family, not on my own, which I probably would have been back home. One son is nearby and though the other is far away, both are safe and healthy. I often catch my thoughts balloon from situation to catastrophe and then slowly, mindfully, breathe myself off the ledge into more nourishing thoughts such as “we were all made for these times”.

We are collectively and relentlessly assaulted by mainstream media and it mostly takes me from my heart and shoots me right up into my head into an unhealthy frequency. I have my own curated stream of media that is more in alignment with my own worldview, but even then I need quiet and silence so I can be with me, what I believe, and what I know to be true. I have removed myself from conversations that I feel are too materialistic, soaked in fear, panic , information and behavior that simply do not resonate with WHO I AM. For the first time I am feeling this as harmful to my well-being. In the past, I have been able to participate and have even enjoyed mindless banter, but today what I feel to be empty, unhelpful information just feels toxic.

Through this crisis/opportunity, I am constantly called to this question: what does it mean to be human today?

What is being revealed is that how we have been living this question is what determines where we are through this “pandemic”. If we think we are purely physical and have a faith that is largely outside of us, then I can see why we feel powerless and fearful in the face of this situation. Yet if we have been living in the belief that we are physical-spiritual, then we can have more internal bandwidth and sit in grace. We know we have a highly intelligent and powerful heart, which has the capacity to regulate our emotions, which in turn does wonders for our physiology. We can get sick but we can also recover. We can also maintain and enhance our health by grounding ourselves in who we are as complex, intelligent, powerful physical-spiritual beings.

And around us in the not-so-beyond, there are spiritual forces and beings of love that hold us, if we ask and let them. Ask them, let them, and stand steadfast in your humanity.