64. Across a Distance

 #66Challenge

This piece was written on Thursday, June 9th in my journal, prompted by the poem "Love" by Czeslaw Milosz.

Love means to learn to look at yourself

the way one looks at distant things

For you are only one thing among many

Today I read an article about why this school year was so hard, and it broke down the pandemic repercussions on our kids. Whether it was trauma or relief, getting back to the way things were was difficult. I made a comment on the article that this is why I've felt so drained. "We teachers have been holding the world together," I said. And the thing is--we didn't know that is what we were called to do. It was thrust upon us unknowingly, and this is why after 90 days, I was ready to pack it in. 

Enough!

But once I took the larger view, as this poem suggests, it got better. 

And whoever sees that way heals his heart,

Without knowing it, from various ills.

A bird and a tree say to him: Friend.

Turning to A Course in Miracles and nature and music, I slowly recovered my part in the whole and came to know what I had to do: Be the light. From then on it was my daily mission, and I never wavered. Making that decision helped ease the road forward, and little by little, my most successful school year revealed itself.

 

Then he wants to use himself and things

So that they stand in the glow of ripeness.

It doesn't matter whether he knows what he serves:

Who serves best doesn't always understand.

I finished the school year with that feeling of ripeness, like I had brought the learners along to the best degree, and now I can move forward in even better ways. This poem reminds me again that staying in tune with the larger picture -- however we see that -- is the only thing that works. All is connected. All experiences live on in other experiences.

As I write this, I'm hearing the song "Shed Your Grace" by Rising Appalachia with Trevor Hall

I believe in holding on

Flock of prayer, mighty song

I find patience in stones

the muted Earth and she alone

Shed your grace upon us

Shed your grace upon us

Shed your grace upon us now

And this also speaks to the strong feeling I've had at this year's end, the one that helps me know I'm in the exact right place for me, that the work matters and brings meaning and purpose to me. When I hear the word "retirement," I cannot even relate! 

This is why: the larger thing, the distant view I get a sense of, but cannot see in detail, and being motivated by LOVE--patient, on-going, and difficult love.

This is grace.

The larger world lives in my every moment. Let me bring that to everything I do, for I am "only one thing among many."