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I had scheduled to send a regular issue of The 77% Weekly. I had an articled called “Best For Free.” It is a knock-out article with great spiritual advice.
I couldn’t schedule a regular article for this Monday morning. Not with what Tuesday means.
To send the “regularly scheduled spiritual newsletter” would be to ignore the reality that I am experiencing and that you might also be experiencing.
I’m sending you this instead – something honest, real, and not perfectly polished.
Reality is so thick with fear that I would wonder what type of religious figure I would be if I didn’t address this ubiquitous fear.
I’m scared.
I’m scared.
I am just scared.
The chalk graffiti outside my garage this summer was one thing.This fear that I’m experiencing in the world right now is something else. Something that scares me a lot more.
Earlier in the summer, I wrote an article called “Scary, but not scared.” I wrote about how we can or ought to be able to choose not to be scared. I ended with the sentence, While it is a scary time, we can joyously live, wholeheartedly, in the face of certain uncertainty.
Today, I don’t believe that any more.
Today, I feel like saying that right thing to do when you feel scared is to feel scared.
Nonetheless, the poem at the end of that other article haunt me.
Here are the words of Hafiz, a man who was best of friends with God.
Fear is the cheapest room in the house.
I would like to see you living
In better conditions.
For your mother and my mother
Were friends.
I know the Innkeeper
In this part of the universe.
Get some rest tonight,
Come to my verse again tomorrow.
We’ll go speak to the Friend together.
I should not make any promises right now,
But I know if you
Pray
Somewhere in this world –
Something good will happen.
God wants to see
More love and playfulness in your eyes
For that is your greatest witness to bear.
Your soul and my soul
Once sat together in the Beloved’s womb
Playing footsie.
Your heart and my heart
Are very, very old
Friends.
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