Today's Prayer: "Be Still And Know That I Am God..."
Our prayer attention is called, once again, to a violence that is all too common in this country - a mass shooting. This time on a subway train in Brooklyn. We hold the people involved in our prayer hearts as there is no way to go through that without being traumatized - whether by being shot directly or in that just as fearful space of not knowing if you are going to be next.
Our individual and collective beings have auto responses to trauma that engage, we hunt for the source of the trauma, we get ourselves and those injured to safety and to places of healing, we talk about what happened and try to make sense of it which helps us in our healing processes.
By this we can have a certain measure of knowing that we are taken care of. This helps our healing process to add to our focal awareness the systems that are engaging for our benefit. There is so much uncertainty in life - I mean, mass shooter in Brooklyn? - that every little bit of certainty helps.
Our trauma response mechanisms, fight or flight / tend and mend, were not meant to operate 24/7. For some they do - unhealed trauma has that effect. We walk around in a misaligned state of post traumatic stress syndrome as if that were the norm. This has an added negative impact on both physical and mental health beyond what the initial event caused - not just to ourselves but to people around us as well. Remember - hurt people hurt people.
Psalm 46:10 is a great tool to help in getting us back in alignment with our Higher Power, our Divine Source of certainty, strength and true healing.
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"
This tells us first and foremost get quiet and in the quiet to "know" - be aware, focus on - that only God is God and not the thing or things that are vying for attention, the higher power spot. This is not to deny what we see or feel, but to affirm that in spite of what we see and feel there is something even greater that has our backs.
When God says "I will be exalted" This translates : אָר֥וּם (’ā·rūm) Verb - Qal - Imperfect - first person common singular Strong's 7311: To be high actively, to rise, raise -
In other words this knowingness that "I Am God", this internal focus on this eternal truth is enough to "raise" to lift up above to a higher place. To be "high actively" means it will move us. This is Divine Action for our benefit - right within us.
We are in Divine hands. God has got this.
I know in the face of the scary stuff life is throwing at us it seems counter-intuitive to "sit and get quiet". Especially when it feels like every fiber of your being is screaming punch or run!
That's ok. That's why it is essential you take steps to address the immediate concern then take the space re-align.
To breathe.
To know.
This is the way.
The path of spirit.
The path of truth.
So we affirm that God is God and in that all we need is already provided for, even before we ask, that we are Divinely guided and protected, that there is no where we are that God is not. In that space we are free. Our fight or flight/tend and mend can be thanked for their efforts and released from active duty.
As we hold this truth, this sacred space, we give permission to be healed and whole to ourselves, to others, to all living beings.
May you be blessed to be a blessing. Safe to be safety in the lives of others.
Amen. Aho. Ase.