Friends accept
that friends
will feel out loud
when they are ready.
~ She Recovers Every Day: Meditations for Women

Late yesterday afternoon I had a serendipitous treasure visiting with my dear friend, Jane Foster. Jane is navigating radiation therapy. The linear accelerator was being repaired so she had the day off from her daily drive into Chicago.

One of the foods that sits well with Jane right now is my homemade creamy tomato basil soup. A neighbor grows the basil and it is such a gift-of-the-garden, even more so when it is shared. I delivered soup and fresh-baked cookies.

This has been a stressful week and the visit with Jane was such a bright spot!

As Jane referenced her sense of the deep pain in the world I told her about the stated angst of an elder student around his not being able to go and physically offer support to those in Israel who are suffering violence and killing. Here is the short transcript of Aaron’s significant response, posted on the Yellow Brick Road with Barbara Brodsky’s blessing:

I hear the pain in your heart. The human goes through various stages in its life. At some stages, this action or reply is most harmonious to the true being, and in other stages, a different reply is. As the human ages, often they cannot go off and protest or do whatever else they were moved to do 30 years earlier, and perhaps that is not what is needed.

The world needs an energetic container for compassion.

Feel in yourself the power to help support that energetic container. It is no less a “doing” than any other kind of doing but it is a doing grounded in a certain wisdom and beingness that only someone that has reached some maturity can bring together.

So, this is your special gift at this time of your life.

To pray.

To visualize.

To purify yourself — releasing old animosities, old distinctions of this and that — and truly holding everything in the loving container of your heart.

This is a powerful connection in the world. It can bring forth powerful results. It can draw to you from all over the world, the energy of others like yourself. You don’t have to talk to each other or Zoom with each other. You can; its not a problem but trust the power of your energy and love and release it into this massive container of unconditional love and strong compassion that says “No!” to killing, but without blame of anybody who still is engaged in killing. They are not ready yet not to kill.

You become the ground from which their readiness can arise….

This awareness visits a very humble and willing space in my heart.

“Don’t Just Sit There. Do Something.” is a song by Lewi B and Manga Saint Hilare.

Meditation circles flip that around and say, “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”

But Aaron’s words bring a beautiful balance to these thought polarities by providing us with a true knowing when you and I pray, visualize, and purify ourselves what we are doing is wholly holy….