Will We Be Changed?

Here in the United States, and in many places around the world, restrictions are relaxing and many people are beginning to practice participation with the world once again. Whether or not this is the right time, or wise, or just politically motivated is a debate for another moment. However, for now, we must notice that the confines of home walls are no longer holding and life is being tested and explored once again.

It is interesting to watch the human Spirit strain against confines and demand normalcy and freedom. There are so many ways those energies that guide from within and press into the world are beautiful and divinely-inspired. And opposingly, there are many of those energies that are egocentric, controlling, and developmentally arrested. Without a doubt, the entire spectrum of human motivation is on display as we figure out how to re-engage in broader life and resume a lifestyle that we expect or at least have come to consider as our right. Without assuming that I am correct in all cases, I do suspect that much of the call for normalcy and demand for quick resolution that we are currently seeing emerges more from the ego aspect of human experience than from our larger-self which is concerned with matters beyond our own comfort and satisfaction. Although, in spite of that opinion, I do want to acknowledge those who clearly need to return to work for reasons related to basic needs such as house and food.

This observation and pondering leads to the question, “Will we be changed?”. Suffering of any sort always calls the soul into conversation with meaningful questions that won't go away especially when they are troubling and uncomfortable. These recent months of quarantine and distancing have asked much of each of us in universal and individual ways. I can't assume what questions have plagued you over the last several weeks, but I can assume that your questions have been nagging at you. I hope that you have been able to entertain some of those whisperings, particularly the ones that unseat long-held patterns, practices, beliefs, and perhaps even some matters to which you have been blind but are beginning to come into view.

We have had and continue to have a magnificent opportunity to explore the perturbations to our lives. I hope that you have allowed those disturbances to bring you some new insight and commitment toward love, ability to release previously held beliefs or damaging dedications, new eyes to see the suffering of others, means of engaging both people and Earth in sustaining and wholehearted ways , and perhaps releasing many things which are both material and invisible that you no longer need. As we begin to investigate what it means to re-engage with broader life and communal experience, I hope that we will be able to take these gifts of soul and translate them into new creative possibilities and dedications outwardly.

Perhaps some of these kinds of questions and insights may have emerged from your soul:
Do I need the rushed clutter of over obligating myself socially and in my work?
Do I need the convenience of all of the material and easily accessible goods that our consumer economy provides?
What do I do with silence and solitude?
Who are my neighbors and how bound to them am I willing to be?
What is my life-giving community and what are my life taking obligations that no longer hold relevance to me?
How is it for me to be responsible for my own food preparation?
Am I willing to conserve resources, use them wisely, and not waste food and other things so as to not rush out and buy unnecessary quantities?
How is it for me to not use my car or other transportation sources as often as my previous life demanded?
How is it for me to walk slowly in nature and my neighborhood?
What do I notice about Earth as I walk?
How do I relate with friends, family, and neighbors more deliberately, and how do I choose to not relate with those who are draining to me?
How can I respond to the needs of others when they are suffering and scared?
What do I now know that I want to read, practice, study, and participate in that I didn't realize earlier?
As I move into the world, how am I willing to continue to be responsible for all of those to whom I see, interact with, and return home to?
How can I continue to be aware of my impact on other people and the Earth?

These are only a few of the kinds of questions that may have arisen from within. Suffering tends to provoke matters toward self-awareness, relationship, love, creativity, humility, restoration, justice, and renewal. May we all take our questions as the gifts that they are because they are calling us to our true nature and also serve as barriers to slipping away from our dignity and getting lost in our own ego once again.

—Kirk Webb
(Director of The Celtic Center)