MONTHLY MESSAGE from TRACY, KATE & MEG

April/May Message - Shaking Up the Life You Imagine

The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out... ~ Hafiz

This excerpt from the work of 14th Century Persian Sufi mystic and poet Hafiz reminds us that now and then we need to shake things up a bit in our lives. It is human nature to create roles and routines that make us feel safe and comfortable. But sometimes we get so caught in our comfort zones that we lose our connection to our deepest Self and to our highest possibilities. We are meant to be present, alive, connected and engaged in life. Our relationships, our jobs, our homes, our work and our social communities are where we are called to engage with others in constructing lives that reflect who we really are. But most of us have had the experience of feeling stuck in our relationships, routines and old familiar patterns. We have experienced boredom, frustration, drudgery or exhaustion as we walk half awake through the monotony of our daily routines. And while we may crab and complain about the state of our life, we oddly cling to the comfort of what we know.

Hafiz reminds us in his poem that we create lives that don’t make us feel alive because we get attached to all sorts of things that bring us no joy—including our familiar roles, patterns and comfort zones. We sometimes see this in our marriages and partnerships. We can become attached to feeling angry, resentful, betrayed or disappointed by our partner. We can become so accustomed to feeling mistreated or misunderstood, that we forget to move forward or to grow to a new place in the relationship. We can become more attached to the story of what has gone wrong than to our commitment to engage and grow in the relationship that is central to our life.

We also get stuck in our parenting roles. We get stuck in the stories we have about our children and in the ideas we have for their lives and their futures. We get attached to worrying and wondering about what will go wrong. We want them to stay safe and protected, to avoid the dangers and uncertainties of life. We get attached to our children as reflections of ourselves rather than as brilliant lights of their own making. We forget to engage with them, to listen to them, to see them for who they are and to understand their struggle. We forget that it is in navigating the uncertainties that they stretch and grow into the fullness of who they are meant to be.

We can also get stuck in our work and community life. Whether our work is volunteering, a job we do for pay, or a career we have built for years, we can get attached to the way we do it or the way we think or feel about it. We can become attached to the stories we tell about our coworkers, bosses, companies or organizations. We might notice we are in a rut when someone new shows up in our workplace feeling excited, asking questions or seeing things with new perspective, and we realize that we have become negative or complacent about what we are doing. We might find we are spending many hours of our day just putting in our time—going through the motions without really engaging with our work or with the people we connect with during our day.

Hafiz gives us a wonderful and playful metaphor to help us think about life. Our life is our opportunity to discover the mystery of God in ourselves, in each other and in the world. Life is a gift of time, love, joy, experiences, relationships, and opportunities to grow into more and more of who we are. If we go to sleep in the middle of all that—if we let our lives get too routine, too familiar, too disconnected, or too broken—we may find ourselves tipped upside down to have all the nonsense shaken out.

We might find ourselves shaken by an illness, a death, a divorce, a job loss or an economic crisis. We might be shaken by a friend, child, loved one or boss telling us a hard truth about something we need to face and change. We might be shaken by the beauty and brilliance of a sunrise, the magic of a newborn baby, the unexpected kindness of a stranger, or the courage and generosity of people coming together in the midst of a crisis. But when we find ourselves shaken it is our opportunity to let go of the nonsense, to remember what is really central and important in our lives, and to cherish the opportunities to engage with love, joy and connection in all that we do.

We wish you peace, love, joy, and the courage to shake up the life you imagine.

Blessings from the Sisters,
Tracy, Kate and Meg

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