Coping with despair

Despair hits all of us at some time in our lives. It can be dark and energy consuming.   When it has you in its grip, there are questions you need to find the answers for:

• What do you have faith in?
• What do you believe in?
• What do you take refuge in?

For it is these things that keep us standing when things get hard, when the storm hits you right where you feel it most, when something you love is lost, when despair is so close you can smell it, when you feel helpless and small in face of something big.

There is a call for us to really know, in our bodies, what sustains us from within.  There is never a guarantee that what sustains us from without will be constantly with us.  But that which sustains us from within will be with us till we die.  

The power of faith is tremendous – and can be both positive and destructive (look at all the atrocious acts done in the name of god).  It is possible to see those who have faith – it is a lightness in their being, a twinkle in the eye, a surety, a knowing that there is something bigger than them that they believe in.  It enables people to walk over fire and not feel it. It enables people to carry out miraculous acts without even thinking about it.  And that is the key – for faith, one has to get out of the way, it is not a mind thing, it is a sing of your complete being.

The phrase ‘unconditional love’ has been trashed by the New Age scene, but lets claim it back with the power it holds!  So what/who do you love without any conditions?  For it is this we place our faith in; faith has no place where conditions apply.  Faith is an entire thing, all consuming.  

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.
Jelaluddin Rumi