The image of a child crying in the back seat of my car
enabled me to move
from trying to silence my anxiety
to having compassion
for a young part of myself.
Over the next few days,
I listened to my life
and began to see what she was bringing to my attention:
a nightmare,
an email exchange,
a moment of feeling trapped and losing my temper,
the insight that followed.
When I pieced these together,
I began to see what rattled her:
an event that happened a few years ago
re-traumatized her.
It didn’t just happen once, I heard.
It didn’t end when you grew up.
It happened again,
and it will keep happening,
and I will never be safe.
I felt her despair in my chest
and let it be there,
both of us held in “the wondrous luminous web” of God’s heart,
grounded in the reality that it can and likely will happen again,
God will be with me,
and I’ll be okay.
I’m not trapped in my anxiety.
It comes and goes, and so can I.
But she doesn’t believe that.
I take her hand and go for a walk.
We notice the birds that fled since the sky’s been smoky
are back chirping in the morning.
New grass has sprouted after last night’s rain.
We look at the trees and remember holding the ecologist’s “cookie,”
a slice of a tree trunk showing the growth rings of a tree that survived many fires.
We will survive this too, even if the burn scars never go away.
I think these messages are for her.
But, really, they’re for another part of myself
that wants the young one to smarten up.
This older part is in my body too,
and I feel her relax a bit,
sense a willingness to give more space
for the little one to feel what she feels
and tell me more when she’s ready.
When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
–Isaiah 43:2
Here I am, as I am
Holy, Human
In this world, as it is
Sacred, Profane
Ever connected, in this wondrous luminous web
Ever abiding, in the Heart of God.
—Heather Ruce ( Body Prayer)
An Everyday Pilgrim 