Loving Anyway

image credit: alicepopkorn

We are certainly being challenged these days to keep our equanimity with all the news of the US financial downturn, and growing uncertainty in the world political situation in general. How easy it can be to  catastrophize and succumb to worry and despair in this climate of unrest. But it is in these very times that we need to walk the talk of our spirituality. When life is peaceful and everything is coming up roses around us, it is easy to expound high philosophical truths. Can we still see the goodness and beauty in life when it all threatens to come crashing down?

Listening to our hearts, focusing on what is truly important, on what never loses value, is the gift we can give to ourselves and to those around us. We create our reality by what it is that we focus on. We can choose to focus on scarcity, scandal and greed and keep ourselves in anger and blame, or we can choose to focus on what we can do to help ourselves and each other.These times call for us to practice letting go, to do what we need to and to surrender the rest. We have no control of the economic crisis, but we can choose to trim the fat off our spending and live within our budgets. We do what we have control of, and then let go to the winds of fate.

At The Soaring Impulse Blog, there is a beautiful poem, The Mask and the Music. Maithri, the author portrays so beautifully how to love anyway, never mind the gloom and doom sayers. In every age and time, there have been voices in the wilderness, extolling the beauty and the love that resides in the human spirit. Nurturing words from these messengers of love, soothe us in our darkest hours, so that no matter how hopeless the outer circumstances, we are reminded to turn inside, to the inner sanctuary of our tender caring. It is in these very times that we get to really savor and appreciate the peace, the love, the equanimity and the beauty of spending time with ourselves. When we have no choice, when the outer is all chaos, turning within is the very balm to soothe our restless souls. My friends, let us come home to Being, let us come home to our own hearts, let us come home to loving anyway!

Special thanks to Alice of alicepopkorn for this exquisite photo, “Trust.” Visit her blog here: Creativity