Pious Prayers versus Pastoral Care

“Pious” is a one-word understatement for an Easter Mass I stumbled across today on my first day in Sydney.  It happens to be Easter Friday.

My heart screamed as we were led around the 12 stations of Christ – full of liturgy, repeated Hail Marys, The Lord’s Prayer recited 12-fold re sins and trespassing, and bended knew upon narrow seats that could hardly fit the man two along from me.

But sitting next to me was a beautiful woman.  I could sense her pain. I saw her…

Oh my.  Recently welcomed as a new member to a collective, I put my hand up to offer where I know one of my talents to be.  Eventing.  Maximising the lead-up, the event itself and the aftercare.

My atom-bomb brain whizzed into action with a zillion ideas.  Not asking them to consider all, but perhaps to action one or two suggestions.

I landed like a tornado on some of the group who felt utterly overwhelmed and strewn to pieces.

Having been an exchange student in Germany years ago, I was horrified today to read an article in the newspaper about a German exchange student who was hosted here in NZ and suffered sexual abuse at the hands of her host-father.

My body sensed this as abhorrent. I felt sick in the stomach. Sadness flooded my face and my eyes wept for a stranger, but a kindred Spirit – excited to head to the other side of the world for new experiences, but certainly not this initiation into abuse, which started innocently, but followed the action path of a “groomer.”

Her message was sexual abusers are not necessarily the “monsters’ out there lurking.

The Accidental Activist - Rise and Rally

This morning, the alliteration Accidental Activist screamed out of my screen.  Having always advocated, activism feels feistier.  Placards, banners, marches and causing a stir.  But for me, a sensitive soul, advocating for others has always come easily.  Activism has felt too harsh, and I didn’t (until now) feel internally “hardy” enough to whether the storms or the backlash, let alone make impact for social change.

But something about turning 60 this year, with the help of fiery menopausal, “time to transform my view of self” energy, it feels apt to be taking big risks, standing my ground and stepping into leadership and helping bold women speak to create social change.

Sustainable change requires the Sticky Cocoon-breaking analogy.

Today is International Women’s Day and I am in awe of some game-changing women who’ve made impact in the world we live.  But today I ponder the metaphors of Glass Ceiling vs Sticky Cocoon – a mainstay of Bold Women Speak.

This Sunday day-off morning, I watched as a beautiful fantail arrived in my yurt.  She couldn’t see how to get outside, so she flew around trying somewhat frantically to find a place to land.  She arrived at the window – plastic one in our yurt – but nevertheless, …

She offered her baby life when many wouldn’t.  She wanted to give him a happy in-utero life of love and unconditional acceptance.  A peaceful birth was offered knowing he may not survive.  But he did. And for 10 days he lived in the arms of his parents and the NICU incubator.  And then he took his last breath.

Why is this happening to me?  Or why did it happen to him/her, the “casualty” of that thing called death?

Well, why NOT you?  Or them?  Notice the hard-hitting “edge” of this question? Sounds like a highly insensitive remark.  But I call it a “power question.”

Loss and death are not personal. 

I remember the morning I got news of Nana Mary’s death. Curled up in the warmth of my bed, mum told me she’d died of a heart attack during the night. This news hit like a bleak snowstorm harsh enough to kill me.  My throat tightened. I had no words. My heart felt like it might stop from the ache, and my world instantly became more insular in the absence of motherly support in my grief.

The “speaking out shift” is now, and you are part of the movement of souls who are here to make your voice be wildfire that extinguishes the old and ignites the new.

How can grief (or you) be gorgeous amidst that unbearable feeling of loss, sadness and mess that you never saw coming, or perhaps you were part of a decision that created mayhem?   That grief has hit you like a Japanese Shinkanzen high-speed train. Your life as you imagined has been shattered.  You feel smashed to smithereens. And you feel far from gorgeous!

Who has provoked you into not just finding your voice, but in upping your inner unstoppability?