Thoughts on Epiphany from Marilyn Wolf

Thoughts on Epiphany from Marilyn Wolf

In the Christian calendar, Jan. 6 is the feast of the Epiphany which celebrates the day when the Magi, having followed a star, arrived at the place of Jesus’ birth. Once there, they realized in a flash that this was not only the birth of a child as foretold by the prophets, but the beginning of a new consciousness. 

Today, we use the word “epiphany”  when we experience a sudden insight or realization about something important to us. It occurs without warning, a bolt of lightning cutting through confusion or perhaps simply a parting of the curtains, allowing us to see more clearly what had been obscured. We’re usually energized by it and want to run tell someone about this “Ah ha!” moment we’ve had. 

As we embark on a new year, can we imagine that a new understanding of something baffling us is out there somewhere? We can’t make these experiences happen. But if we’re searching for clarity about anything, let’s fix our eyes on our own brightest star, follow it with a heart filled with hope and faith, infused with trust that illumination, a new way of seeing, our very own epiphany awaits us. 

Blessings for 2022 Inspired by Desmond Tutu

Blessings for 2022 Inspired by Desmond Tutu

Well, here we are at the beginning of another New Year! I looked for an image that would symbolize this particular unprecedented transition but couldn’t find anything quite right. Then I remembered this quote by Desmond Tutu which I used in a class I facilitated about hope last year. And who better to feature than the brilliant, courageous, joyful, and sadly, late Archbishop Desmond Tutu?

Hope is being able to see the light despite all the darkness.

– Desmond Tutu

As many of you probably did also, I saw Desmond Tutu as part of the Bryan Series many years ago. When he walked out onto the stage, I felt a shift in the auditorium. Despite his small stature, from his huge and generous heart radiated an energy which I can best describe as expansive and up-lifting. I knew I was in the presence of one who embodied truth, vision and hope.

In light of the dark years we’ve recently endured, many would say that they refuse to get their hopes up as we embark on another uncertain 12 months. Some would say I’m being naive to be even talking about hope (I’ve been called that my whole life, and it’s never stopped me from being hopeful).

So, what is hope anyway? It’s not the assurance of wonderful things but is a light which illuminates the path that stretches out ahead through parts unknown. Aren’t we all so tempted to walk the path with a guarded heart? Sure, but we can also breathe, drop our shoulders, surround our heart with courage and embark into the unknown regions of 2022. And while we’re at it, let’s invite our brothers and sisters to join us. Hope is a fire much easier to keep alive in community.

I don’t know about you, but I’m going to cast my bet on Tutu’s wisdom and venture into 2022 with hope as my light to guide and bolster me through whatever darkness may befall us. Would you like to join me?

A Conversation with God

A Conversation with God

Hello God,

What a year, huh? I’m sure you’re swamped with prayers and petitions. I’ve come so many times, asking for guidance I need, answers to the same old questions, for forgiveness I probably don’t deserve. I’ve asked for intervention in the lives of people I love and for you to help me be strong, kind and wise. But here I am again with my hand stretched out.

What is it I need now? It’s peace I’m after. And to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure I understand what that means. However, I’m pretty sure I know what peace is not. It isn’t never being troubled or having things go my way. Peace is not a goal, an achievement or a prize. It’s not something I can make happen no matter how many classes I attend, how many books I read, or how hard I meditate.

These days, I hear lots of pithy sayings about peace. It’s every step you take. It’s the space between the breaths. It’s our true essence. I kind of get all that on one level, but actually, if someone asked me to explain how peace is the space between the breaths, I’d have to make something up and hope I sound smart.

In church, I’ve heard the words, “the peace of God which surpasses all understanding.” So, I guess it’s okay that I don’t understand it since whoever said that obviously didn’t. Peace isn’t something we can get with our minds anyway, now is it? Hmmm, is it possible that it’s really just a state of being? Being okay no matter what’s going on around me, like a boat with a deep rudder that can ride out the storm? But if I have to wait until the storms pass and the water is smooth to be at peace, then I’m going to be waiting a long time. And at this stage in my life, I don’t have that kind of time.

Now, here’s a thought. Maybe peace is giving up trying to figure out what peace is, to quit pursuing it, and to stop feeling bad about myself because I’m not as peaceful as I think I ought to be. In other words, being okay no matter what’s going on inside me. Being peaceful even when I’m not peaceful? Now, that is definitely a peace that surpasses all understanding.

I like it, God. Thanks for the chat. I didn’t have much hope that I’d leave feeling so satisfied, but what is hope anyway? I’ll be back another day and we can work through that one. For now, I’m good.

This piece, edited for length, appears in the December 2020 issue of O.Henry magazine in their feature article, “Prayers of the People.”
© Marilyn Wolf

What’s a Little Sadness To Start Your Day?

What’s a Little Sadness To Start Your Day?

Since the start of the pandemic, like so many of you, my emotions have been a roller coast ride. But one day earlier this week as I was reading the news on my back porch with my coffee and dog, a wave of sadness washed over me. Bigger than anything I’ve experienced in this chaos, it caught me by surprise as tears rushed to my eyes.

Doctors and nurses are drowning with no lifeboats in sight. Teachers are hanging on a cliff waiting to hear final decisions about schools reopening. Business owners go to work, wondering if today is the day someone walks in and threatens or commits violence because they’re asked to wear a mask.

Every day, I learn more about the surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. I imagine just how many people are walking the floor with desperate worry about loved ones they can’t be with. How many are bent over double with grief from the loss of spouses, partners, parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and children?

I’ve been reading book after book on racism, and my thoughts are filled with my African American friends and people of color I don’t know and never will. How do they bear the truth of what happened to their ancestors – the beatings, rape, torture and lynchings? How do they stomach the murders of people like Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, to mention just a few from a long list.

I can’t help but compare my own life experiences to those of others I’m so conscious of right now.

So far, my family and friends have been spared the virus, but not so for over 3 million people in our country which includes over 135,000 deaths. And we know there’s more to come.

None of my ancestors were enslaved. None of my relatives were hung from a tree simply because of the color of their skin. And we know that racism still rages in this country and that more tragedies are likely to happen.

You wouldn’t know it by reading this, but I’m a hopeful person by nature. Down inside, burning low but steady under this heavy blanket of sadness, my hope survives.

This time we’re living in has brought some hard truths our way. To fully wake up means seeing it all, feeling it all, living with it all. As much as it hurts, I choose being awake, knowing what I know, with every bit of this heartbreak and every ounce of this sorrow.

The End of Racism Begins As An Inside Job

The End of Racism Begins As An Inside Job

Having come of age in the 1960s, I must say that the events of the last week took me right back to that turbulent and shocking time of the Civil Rights movement – protests, marches, police brutality, terror and the unthinkable suffering of our Black citizens.

There I sat in our living room, staring at the TV as my parents tried their best to offer an explanation which would make sense to a fourteen year old white southern girl. Nothing they said worked.

I have not lived the fifty years since then under the illusion that our nation’s issues of race have been resolved, not even as I’ve seen people of color advance in every field and be elected to positions of power. Not even as I’ve seen a Black man be elected president.

The last few years have stripped away any veneer of racial equality which we may have wanted to believe we’ve achieved. The systemic racism which has existed for hundreds of years in this country is alive and well, and it continues to terrorize, enrage, breed despair and break hearts.

Have we come no further than this? As James Baldwin wrote, “There are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.” But something IS different this time. Maybe at last, we are willing to know some things about ourselves, painful as they may be, and to do things differently.

White people have taken to the streets in droves to protest alongside their black friends, most of them young. They too carry signs proclaiming, “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace.”  They too are angry and willing to risk their safety to stand with people of color in their communities.

In Louisville, Kentucky, a line of white women, arms locked, stood between the police and black protesters. This is how they decided to turn their privilege into protectiveness.

In Michigan, a sheriff took off his helmet and walked with protesters.  In other places, police officers have knelt with demonstrators. I saw a photo on Facebook of an officer giving a bottle of water to a young black man.

Here in Greensboro, the CEO of one of our largest employers issued a corporate memo with the subject line, “Taking a Stand for Racial Justice.” Groups are being formed by white people on Facebook to inspire activism, and white ministers are calling for their congregations to take a stand.

All of this gives me hope.

What heartens me the most however, because I believe it is the basis of the systemic change needed to really turn the tide, is this: White people, myself included, are finally willing to look in the mirror and see the subtle prejudice and racist thinking which exists in the recesses of our unconscious minds.

We are willing to admit that we don’t really know much about the black experience in America and that we have not challenged ourselves to learn. Not really.

We white folks, it seems to me, are willing now to fully take up the mantle of responsibility of ending racism and are coming to realize it starts within through uncomfortable inner examination and the commitment to grow in new and uncertain ways.

Over the last few years, I’ve come to realize that I don’t know much of anything about what black people really and truly have endured, what I call “the inside of the experience” because I’ve only witnessed it from the outside – maybe with a heart of compassion, but still on the outside of their experience, and also on the outside of my own.

Inner transformation is the foundation for any real change to come about in every area of life. It all starts as an inside job.

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” Martin Luther King, Jr. said. There is a universe out there, and there is a universe inside each of us. My hope lies in the fact that as we white people awaken more fully to our inner moral universe, we will ride its arc in permanent solidarity with our black brothers and sisters toward that long-awaited place of justice, equality, freedom and peace.

When FEAR Comes to Visit

When FEAR Comes to Visit

This virus is here, and if you’re anything like me, you may be getting a little tired of people telling you to stop living in fear. Well, here’s my self-righteous response to that:

I am fully capable of living WITH fear while not living IN fear.

It’s okay if we’re afraid. It’s a perfectly normal human response to a scary situation over which we have no power.

And furthermore…

Fear, if denied, can wreak havoc on our emotional, physical and spiritual selves. Pushing it down doesn’t serve us. Just like a burp, it’s going to come out whether we want it to or not. I promise you, it’s going to find a way.

Sufi mystic and poet Rumi tells us that “this being human is a guest house.” He says to welcome all our feelings even if they “violently sweep” our houses clean of its furniture.

Well, I’m not nearly as clever with the written word at my dear friend Rumi, but here is a little something I’ve thought up which maybe you’ll find useful when fear comes to your door for a visit.

F –  Feel it. We all hate to hear that, but I think it’s important. Feel your heart beating faster than usual, your stomach tightening up… and breathe. Slowly. Consciously. Use a prayer or mantra or not. Count or don’t. Just breathe. In…out…in…out. Slowly, now. You’ve got it!

E – Expect to be afraid. Why wouldn’t you be? This is pretty damn frightening. So don’t be surprised that you are and, for heaven’s sake, don’t be disappointed with yourself. Here’s another E – Everyone is afraid, at least from time to time. If they say they’re not, then they are either made of ice or not telling the truth. Just my opinion.

A – Ask for some help if you need it. Call, email, use Facebook, FaceTime, Zoom, Skype. Lord, there are no excuses for not being able to reach someone these days. Staying connected really matters right now. Call someone up and tell them you’re afraid. If they say you shouldn’t live in fear, tell them your dog needs to go to the bathroom and hang up.

R – Redirect your attention. Find something to do. I don’t care if it’s meditation, taking a walk, baking a cake, learning a new language, or painting your overgrown toenails. Just do it. Turn your mind towards something else. If the news is on, turn it off. At least for a little while. Go find something to do.

Rumi says to “welcome and entertain” our feelings, to “be grateful for whoever comes.” I can’t tell you I’m grateful for my fear. I’m just not that evolved, I guess.

So, dear Rumi, I’m not entertaining my fear, as you suggest. I’m not snuggling up with it or even fixing it a cup of coffee in the mornings. I’m not going to let it take over my household, but it does look like it’s going to be here a while.

What I am doing is buckling down, and with hope by my side, learning to live with this visitor named Fear. It’s my home, after all, and Fear is just going to have to learn to live with me!