I was in second grade when JFK was assassinated. I remember the teacher calling us in from recess to tell us the news. I remember seeing my father cry.
I remember pulling into a parking spot in front of my SF apartment as Dianne Feinstein came on the radio to announce that Mayor Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk had been assassinated at City Hall. It was barely ten days after the mass suicide at Jonestown in Guyana took over 900 lives of People’s Temple members, many of them from the Bay Area.
I remember the shock of Sept 11.
During each of these traumatic events I struggled to make sense of a world that seemed to have turned upside down before my eyes.
Worst of all was the day I learned that my baby had died in my womb at the very end of a perfectly normal pregnancy. That was the hardest thing I’ve ever experienced and I don’t know how I would have made it through if I hadn’t been consciously on the spiritual path for some time before it happened.
I was a member of Unity then and I had a strong connection with my church family, as well as a deep commitment to studying the teachings.
One of the prayers I had learned went like this: There is only one presence and one power active in all the Universe and in my life – God, the Good Omnipotent.
I knew it and prayed it and believed it. But when my baby died I was forced to put it to the test. Was I going to throw out my belief because I was so angry with God? Or was I going to lean in and grab on to it as my anchor in a sea of anguish?
You can probably guess “which way I broke,” as they say. And maybe you can also guess why I’m thinking about that prayer today.
Yes, I have been profoundly disturbed by the events in our nation’s capital today. My mind reels and I’m struggling to make sense of it all. But I know from experience that I have a choice. I always do.
So I choose to believe in and to focus on that one presence and power. I choose to remember that it is active in all the universe and in my life, in all lives. I choose to know that it is God.
We’re being put to the test. What do you choose to believe and to focus on right now? 🙏
