Our theme for November is Healing and our question to ponder is, What Does It Mean to Be A People of Healing? I found it interesting that I recently received two emails from separate sources, both talking about the importance of a broken-open heart for healing. From Soul Matters, a reminder from Parker Palmer of a tale from the Hasidic tradition:
A disciple asks the rebbe: “Why does Torah tell us to place these words upon your hearts? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts?” The rebbe answers: “It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So, we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in.”
Here’s what else Palmer has to say: “When the heart is supple, it can be “broken open” into a greater capacity to hold our own and the world’s pain: it happens every day. When we hold our suffering in a way that opens us to greater compassion, heartbreak becomes a source of healing, deepening our empathy for others who suffer and extending our ability to reach out to them.”
Joanna Macy reminds us, “The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe…All is registered in the ‘boundless heart’ of the bodhisattva. Through our deepest and innermost responses to our world – to hunger and torture and the threat of annihilation – we touch that boundless heart.”
In “An Almost Daily Devotional” that I receive from Rev. Cameron Trimble, she shared a quote from Mathew Fox that left her stunned. He said “People in the US spend $56,000 EVERY SECOND on weapons development.
Instead of building weapons that kill people and destroy our planet, here are some things we could do with $56,000 every second for the common good.
Eradicate hunger,
Build a farm to table movement that supports local community economies, Develop treatments and vaccines for diseases impacting people around the world, Give everyone who wants it access to higher education,
Begin the work of reparations,
Provide social services and support to help families thrive,
Rebuild our roads, bridges, and critical infrastructure,
Invest in minority and women-owned enterprises,
Develop clean energy solutions,
Clean our oceans…
In other words, we could care for the poor, heal the sick (and our planet), honor our children and elders, and protect the weakest among us. If we refused to invest in greed and tyranny, we could invest in a more just and generous world for all.”
I’m comfortable claiming that over these last several months our hearts have been broken, and broken-open, by all that we have seen and experienced.
St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval Roman Catholic scholar, was the first to coin the term “common good.” He was concerned about the ways that governments care for all people, not just those who have privileges or access to power and wealth.
Caring for the “common good” is a core teaching of every major religion, including Unitarian Universalism.
In preparation for continuing our interfaith engagement with JUST Pensacola, I invite you to join a Zoom conversation on Sunday, November 8, at 11:30 am to answer the question, what is breaking your heart, or keeping you awake at night?
In Rev. Trimble’s words, May we all break open for the sake of the common good. We are in this together.
In Love and Hope, Rev. Alice