The Third Room:
God, Where Were You When...? Why Did Bad Things
Happen to Me?
Difficult experiences can make you feel that God has abandoned you. Prayers seem to go unanswered; sacred rituals seem to lose their ability to comfort you. The heavens seem to have no compassion. What are your memories? One woman wanedred, Where was God for me when my parents were getting divorced and I was all alone? She is still angry with God, a typical reaction to the feeling of abandonment, to the death or prolonged suffering of a loved one, or to an ordeal perceived as undeserved.
(Those of you who know me and those who are getting to know me, and know yourselves will understand how I identify with both what is written above and written beneath.)
The word deserve causes immeasurable pain. Beliefs about what we deserve are rooted in a social-superstitious creed that suggests bad things should only happen to bad people. Most people believe that if they are good, God will reward them with protection from all undeserved suffering. This is human logic, but not divine logic. Pain and pleasure, suffering and abundance, are two sides of the coin of life experience. The divine asks you to learn through you life experiences. Yet we struggle with the concept of deserving because continually strive to see the logic behind events that occur to us. We cling to the belief that goodness is a shield of protection against having to experience the injustice or unfairness. But all sides of life are expressions of the divine; the unjust side tests our capacity to trust in a wisdom greater than our own. Without that trust, we often end up holding on to the memories of feeling betrayed by God, believing that somehow the wrong thins happened to us. Such illusions give rise to bitterness and an inability to forgive.
Soul Work: Ask your soul for guidance in understanding the gifts within any tragedies or crises in your life. |You are to pray for grace, wait, and receive. Do not let your mind feel pressured to answer; keep soul dialogue gentle, flowing like dream imagery. Do not expect or seek rational explanations. Note any symbolic impressions or single words that come to you: Often, these are messengers.
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For far too long I have been neglecting to carry a notebook and pen around with me and have it by my bed at night. Its a useful thing to do and I am starting to do it again, as of now; which I reccomend for you to do likewise.
Its now five in the morning, more or less and so I will bid you all to fare well this day.
You brother Peter
The following poem, "Fringe," by the great thirteenth century Muslim mystic Rumi, is perfect inspiration for your reflection in this room.
FRINGE
You wreck my shop and my house and now my heart, but
How can I run from what
Give me life? I`m weary of personal worrying, in love
With the art of madness!
Tear open my shame and show the mystery. How much longer
do I have to fret with
Self-restraint and fear? Friends, this is how it is:
We are fringe sewn inside.
The lining of a robe. Soon we`ll be loosened, the binding
threads torn out. The beloved
Is a lion. We`re the lame deer in his paws. Consider what
choices we have! Acqueisce
When the Friend says, come into me. Let me show my face.
You saw it once in preexistence,
Now you want to be quickened and quickened again. We have been
secretly fed
From beyond space and time. That`s why we look for something
more than this.
(The Soul of Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks,
HarperSanFrancisco,2001)
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