To All Who Have Felt Unsafe, Threatened, Violated, Isolated, Unloved and Wrongfully Judged for Being Different, this is for you...
May you be blessed with good friends. May you learn to be a good friend to yourself. May you be able to journey to that place in your soul where there is great love, warmth, feeling, and forgiveness. May this change you. May it transfigure that which is negative, distant, or cold in you. May you be brought in to the real passion, kinship, and affinity of belonging. May you treasure your friends. May you be good to them and may you be there for them; may they bring you all the blessings, challenges, truth, and light that you need for your journey. May you never be isolated. May you always be in the gentle nest of belonging with your anam cara.~ John O'Donohue, A Friendship Blessing
I wrote over 3000 words yesterday after tears and prayers and a little too much facebook time in regards to this latest mass shooting. I thought I was writing to share, but I was writing to process.
And then, when I quieted, having purged confusion and heartbreak onto the page and sent prayers up in smoke, I laid in bed and remembered this blessing, and it is what my heart feels. That we all have an anam cara in our life. That, perhaps, we can grow and be this for one another. To love and be loved in all we face and may face, and have lived through.
To the LGBTQ community, of which many in my family and extended family belong, I stand with you. And I want to be better at that every day.
To all of my friends, in all of the marginalized communities and beyond... to all of us, as a people... all who have felt unsafe, violated, isolated, threatened, unloved and wrongfully judged for being different, this blessing is my heart's deepest wish for our souls today.