Robbins Hopkins

Spiritual Health: Being at Peace in Everyday Life

suffering

GOD of All, Hear Us In Our Hour of Need

We lay our profound suffering before You
Calling for an end to vast sadness and grief
Commanding the inclusion of all peoples in Grace
Hear us now, as endless darkness deepens

We are lost in fear and doubt,
Angst and sorrow so profound,
Getting out of bed is humbling
Getting to sleep, impossible

My heart shrinks and shrivels up with
Thousands feeling loss, destitution, and brokenness
Pervading fear grips the strongest among us
Endless trials repeat, each darker than before

Marchers on Brooklyn Bridge 2020

Thousands crossing the Brooklyn Bridge
Hundreds gassed at peaceful protests
Nameless, faceless paramilitary units
Threatening, confronting, with anger, then arrest

God of All, the old hatreds must go and soon
We cannot sustain this level of bedeviling disarray
We can’t return to the horrors of the past
The horrors of the present must end, and swiftly

Thousands unable to pay the rent, find a job, bury their dead
Thousands of businesses gasping for one more breath
Daily number explosions of  more sick, dying and dead
Dreams, hopes, nest eggs, disappearing, perhaps forever

Photo by Katyal Prateek

Guide us to peace, safety, and forgiveness
Bring us to the expanding path of Wholeness
Help us ensure that together, we all rise on the tide
Ever staring down darkness, by choosing Love

I choose to be kinder and clear out my anger and fear
I call in more compassion, banish all remnants of ego
Guide me to walk humbly with my God on the toughest days
Cleanse me of doubt and bring me home when my work here is finished

Fear Taints Everything

Fear is an all-encompassing emotion
It has a very long shelf life, left unattended
It gets denser and more at home over time
It profoundly affects your sense of what is

To dig out fear, you have to suspect it may be present
You have to name it as best you can
Including all the symptoms known and unknown
While commanding it out of your own energy field

Banish it from all four fields of consciousness
Every smidgen of fear that is not conscious
Still has a huge and lasting impact on you
Fear resides at the subconscious and soul level

Fear can hang out in your unconscious field
Fear can be consciously with your all the time
That makes a whole whopping lot of fear
You need to be sure all of it leaves your being

This is a lifelong task that only you can undertake
It insures you are not run by unnamed fears
That you can stop lashing out with unbridled anger
That you can disengage from all forms of hatred

Photo Toa Heftiba

Asking for forgiveness only goes so far
If you keep repeating the fear-based responses
Blowing up and regularly going totally ballistic
Others distance and protect themselves from you

Asking for forgiveness for the umpteenth time
Is also too little too late, especially with loved ones
Your responsibility is to seek the source of your fear
Then do your utmost to clear the fear from your field

Get to it because any effort works better than
Living and being run by unnamed fears
All efforts lead towards reaching the core
Source of the fear and anger, to free you forever

Facing fear takes guts and repeated efforts
It requires you to take off your public mask
Get into your heart and name the fear
Even while you may be afraid it will devour you

Sticking your fearful head in the sand
Does not EVER work, though you do get
All the chances you need to keep avoiding
The fears, while amassing all the consequences

You can wait until the consequences are severe
So that you have to make amends with everyone
Or step up now before the abysmal consequences
Of being run by fears create profound suffering