July 19, 2024

During this week (has it been a week or has it been a month?) of a particularly intense news cicle (and that's saying a lot these days), a friend shared this poem with me:

What I Can Do 

So I can’t save the world—
can’t save even myself,
can’t wrap my arms around every frightened child,
can’t foster peace among nations,
can’t bring love to all who feel unlovable.
So I practice opening my heart
right here in this room and being gentle
with my insufficiency.
I practice walking down the street heart first.
And if it is insufficient to share love,
I will practice loving anyway.
I want to converse about truth, about trust.
I want to invite compassion into every interaction.
One willing heart can’t stop a war.
One willing heart can’t feed all the hungry.
And sometimes, daunted by a task too big,
I tell myself what’s the use of trying?
But today, the invitation is clear:
to be ridiculously courageous in love.
To open the heart like a lilac in May,
knowing freeze is possible and opening anyway.
To take love seriously.
To give love wildly.
To race up to the world as if I were a puppy,
adoring and unjaded, stumbling on my own exuberance.
To feel the shock of indifference,
of anger, of cruelty, of fear,
and stay open.
To love as if it matters.
As if the world depends on it.
by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

It can be difficult in these times where tensions are running high not to let ourselves be overwhelmed. But in the face of everthing frustrating, uncertain, frightening, anger-inducing, what if we practice loving anyway? What if we are ridiculously courageous in love? What if, despite it all, we dig in deeper. This is my prayer this week - for all of us.