Mental Meanderings in Honor of Compassion

We lived just south of Memphis, in Walls Ms, when Hurricaine Katrina slammed New Orleans. I don’t watch the news and at that time rarely read it either, but my husband gave me the sad news of what was probably coming over night and no one could stop nature. My children were 1 and 4 at the time. I was living in a quiet meditaiton of active bodies, loving snuggles, smallness of people I couldn’t wrap my mind around even though I gave birth to them and hours alone with only the walls of our apartment and the sighs of sleeping boys. A few months after that night I blogged a writing practice that found it’s way to the anguish I experienced as I didn’t sleep, aware that countless families were literally and nearly drowning, terrified, and being torn apart and the much milder down pour that found us the next day, a reminder, as we read headlines of destruction, that it wasn’t us. Memphis kicked in to high gear along with much of the country to help any way we could and it wasn’t until we were on our way to Colorado a few days later that I saw footage. I explained it to our 4 year old as best I could. The following is a highly revised version of that writing practice which is really a wandering accross the page (screen).
All avoidance, some balance. I’m thinking things like…If I had a light lap top, I would spend time in odd places writing on this blog. I seem little pleased with the corner I sit in presently. Though happily listening to one of the radio stations on pandora. It’s after 5pm, the computer reports 6:16pm. The afternoon was long and sleepy. Today, Bahiyyih helped Devyn plant his first garden. It feels so human and regular, like I am a worthy mom now. We tried to plant in little clay pots in Mississippi, but it was too late in the year and too cold. Also, Devyn, in his speedy and amazing way, rushed out to water his flowers too much and in my inability to stop him and do all else that was then required of me, they did not grow more than an inch above soil.
I believe we are all more mature now and a good and beautiful garden will soon spring up in the square of ready soil we offered seeds to today.Water every third day. After it rains, start over. Bahiyyih down the street now can be called on for councel. The sun, so peaceful a presence pours into the front windows. I passed by it on the way to the computer and felt that just because of it’s light, here, now, everything will be all right.
Oh Lord, settling is quietly hard, the no running away part. How I have perfected it God, but pray still to learn to live with out the fear of angry men. How many of us, I wonder are conciously and unconciously afraid of angry men. The ones in our lives and the ones through history, and the ones now, who seem unable to think clearly and yet, are in charge of masses (reference to no one in particular, just fighting in the name of “fill in the blank” around the world in general).
I realized one day that I have failed to feel sad for anybody suffering far away. That I have failed mostly to think of them at all, let alone pray for them, hope for them, think of their children. I think of them now, sometimes. At times recently, I have prayed for them, even cried for them.
But mostly I have been stuck in my own life. I pray this continues to change. That hurricaine, so close to our home, but not close enough to touch us, that was the kick over into sanity as far as this goes. How I ached for those people Sunday night. All night. I ached like I did the night I looked into eternity, saw it was real and beat my fists into the carpet, a deep down scream in my soul, way down, where I couldn’t stop it, or quiet it, or be distracted from it by any thought. The next morning I saw Baha’u’llah. The next morning was sunshine and light everywhere, inside and out. Finally I could sit still, take in a deep breath, hear birds sing again (when did I stop listening?), see dust dance in a ray of sunshine like I used to many a bored afternoon after school before mom and dad came home from work. I could exhale, aware that an anxiety I carried around like a sick pet had vanished (I would find anxiety again another day, but not this one. It has never returned).
Monday after Katrina, when I woke up, knowing a storm had raged, I was not rewarded with spiritual light like before. Only the pain of the night had been similar. Instead I ached. Here are the tears now, again. Once it happened in America for all of us to see, the pain accross oceans began to seep into my belly.