Vulnerability and “Reading with Medicine”
The word vulnerable comes from the Late Latin vulnerabilis "wounding," and from vulnerare "to wound, hurt, injure, maim." I start with this because I’m writing with a wound this morning. I’m writing vulnerably and without answers.
I finally took time yesterday to really read through a lot of information and look at a lot of pictures of a pretty big and terrible news story happening in our world.
The exact details aren’t important because it’s not really new. It’s people suffering at the hands of other people. And I haven’t looked for so long because I knew how deeply wounding it would be to read.
Like lots of digital media, it was full of truly insane and barbaric rabbit holes. I could read all the gory horific details in a hundred different places, articulated a hundred different ways. And I just wept and wept.
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I don’t have any answers for the enormity of human suffering we’re seeing on this planet. And it’s the hardest part of any client session, or sermon I preach, or workshop I offer; that moment when someone asks “How can there be a God when there’s so much evil in the world?”
There’s even a whole theological field for questions like this: theodicy. It’s often intellectually stimulating to think about how evil can co-exist with an omnipotent benevolent God, but it’s impossible to reconcile in my heart.
So if you, like me, have been reading the news anytime in the past 30 to 300 years I offer you some of the salve I offered myself yesterday. It didn’t heal the wound, my heart is unreconciled, but I have to find some way to keep doing my work in a world where beauty and destruction are so interwoven.
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On my bookshelf, there’s a book called Project 562 by Matika Wilbur. She’s a Swinomish woman who set out to photograph all 562 sovereign indigenous tribes in the US. In her words:
“Project 562 overcomes historical inaccuracies, stereotypical representations, and silenced Native American voices in massive-media. Matika’s work aims to humanize the otherwise “vanishing race”, and shares stories that Native Americans would like told.”
It is SO POWERFUL and I recommend you at least click through the website and then buy the book. There is, of course, an enormous section in the book about Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in which Wilbur writes: I encourage my Native relatives to read with medicine.
I’m not Native and I can’t know exactly what Wilbur means when she writes this but it helped me in a way I don’t understand. The idea of ‘reading with medicine’ inspired me to keep my medicines close by as I engage with the hard stuff.
I keep a little astral Christ in my heart. I breathe into the bowl of my pelvis. I read imagining the hands of my ancestors (Jean, Elinor, Frank, Paul) at my back. I remember that the Menorah is always lit in the temple. I watch the sun rise and I watch it set.
So if you, like me, have a tender heart that seeks to heal this world, if you perhaps incarnated specifically for this purpose, then this is the salve I offer to you today.
As you read the news, remember also to seek out the beauty, seek the people who are uplifting the sacred no matter how much destruction has been wrought, and always read with medicine.
Thank you for teaching us, Matika Wilbur and all the sacred peoples of this earth.
In Pursuit of Joy - Course Open
It’s not too late to join us In Pursuit of Joy. We’re just starting the second module now and if you’re still on the fence, the first module is available for free for you to try.
Here’s what’s included in your course:
15 bite-sized video teachings spread across 6 weeks
Or, 15 audio teachings if you prefer your wisdom that way
12+ joy practices so good they’ll become lifelong habit
In-depth teachings about how the great masters Judas, Mary Magdalene, and Mother Mary’s personal angel Gabriel used joy as a power tool
Exploration of joy in the Upanishads, Sufi practices, medieval mystcism and more
6 group zoom calls facilitated by yours truly
1 Clairvoyant Counseling session to ensure your joy channels are open
Delightful art and poetry bonuses from the very best modern teachers; Fr. Richard Rohr, Tara Brach, Rev. Jan Richardson, and more
Cost is one payment of $315, three payments of $105, or you can use your 15% discount if you’re a Mighty Networks member.
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Artwork? Top image is a photo by me of Matika Wilbur in her book Project 562. Bottom image is by Victor Mosquero.
