"There is a reason for everything"

I am finding myself more and more irritated when i hear someone make this statement in response to tragedy. From a lost puppy to wrecked car to death of a child to dinner burning to hurricane devastating a country. I wonder if people are so removed from others pain and the mindset of "THANKING god" it did not happen to them, that they trivializa their pain to avoid actually questioning their own belief system.
I dont believe the accidental death of a young child has a reason-- who will learn from this and is THEIR learning worth the death of a child and the pain of the family? Is it really a belief that GOD causes this accident to help someone else with a lesson in life? really??? i find it interesting those that say it have tended to not have the same tragedy. I think its said without really thinking of how the person in pain will feel when its said.
And a hurricane that rips through communities with such devastation that it will take years to rebuild REALLY part of a reason? Gods judgment? anger? sin? WTF?
Are women who are raped and tortured going through this for a reason? What? to make them better people? to make them not put themselves as a target? REALLY? Are we so quick to diminish a persons pain by trying to help them see it as a lesson from God?
A child who develops a terminal illness --is there a reason?

Cant we say many horrible things happen and there simply isnt a reason? There is no god orchestrating horrible things in order to bring someone to Him or to a new life or to repentance and if there is--He is a tyrant and a evil bastard. As a believer in Mother Earth/Goddess I know She would not hurt people to prove Her love for them or to make them prove their love for Her. The divine is expressed through perfect love and thus it is not evil or hurtful.

Horrible things happen and all we can do is deal with the pain and the sorrow, figure out what to do next and then start healing. We can LEARN from tragedies but tragedies dont occur for our own lessons--it is simply part of life.
I am becoming closer and closer to telling someone to shut the fuck up the next time the pithy, dismissive and diminishing excuse is given rather than I am listening to you and here for you.
What i believe I can learn from tragedies is just being there for hurting people. Just holding a hand, wiping a tear or letting them feel safe in expressing all the emotions they have--and letting them know ALL they feel is normal. As my disaster class said " normal reactions to abnormal events"

I find it interesting

to hear of all the fear of a religious group that Americans express. They fear their threats of taking us over or the violence that has happened--they are incensed with anger over the audacity they come to OUR own soil to wage war.

Never mind the history of christianity..the waging of war on others lands, the crossing the oceans to "unknown" places and conquering all the "savages" there ALL in the name of GOD. Never mind the murder, terror, torture and contempt for everyone everywhere throughout most of the history of christianity.

How is this different? How can we be angry at what another country is doing when christianity itself is guilty of the very same thing? Terrorizing others who differ from them.
To deny that christinaity is a violent religion is to simply show ignorance and an assumed entitlement that since we are bringing heathens to Jesus then We have it every right to terrorize others, to humiliate others, to kill and maim and pass laws to prevent them full human rights.

I am tired if the unkindness of this religious group. And i am quite sure GOD is tired of them using his name to judge and criticize and hurt and deny love to others around us. I know I am tired of it and refuse any longer to abide by it quietly.

Hope

Hope

Old spirit, in and beyond me,
keep and extend me. Amid strangers,
friends, great trees and big seas breaking,
let love move me. Let me hear the whole music,
see clear, reach deep. Open me to find due words,
that I may shape them to ploughshares of my own making.
After such luck, however late, give me to give to
the oldest dance.... Then to good sleep,
and - if it happens - glad waking.

~ Philip Booth ~

that moment

I can think back to several moments where life changes in seconds in a single event. One minute I think life is going one way and then something happens or someone says something and life changes. Not the small change but a dramatic, life altering, gut wrenching change that feels like a dream. Its on slow mode for a brief moment like all time stops and seems unreal.

I think I started thinking about this watching a show where the husband and wife are sitting and having a nice dinner and just having fun and for some reason he says something that you can tell by the wife's face that her life just shifted drastically. For a brief agonizing moment life and beliefs and hopes and dreams all ceased to make sense anymore. When another person changes the rules of the game without you consenting one can just feel the gut wrenching realization that it can never be put back together and life. has. changed.forever.

These moments are not always bad in the long run--often they are the beginning of better understanding, clearer vision and focus and the sign it is time to make changes but nonetheless they still hurt to the very core.
I remember being told of my spouse having affairs and even though it was years after the divorce it was an AHAH!!! moment of clarity which explained events leading up to the divorce which NOW made sense whereas before it was a jumbled up puzzle piece of stuff. Then the sorrow hit and i realized how life had changed and how drastically. As everyone experience tragedy and sorrow, the question is what is the next step? That is what defines our character and our future.
Words are powerful and in a syllable or two ones life can change forever.

Dreams?

State what is impossible then decide what it will take to make it possible.

As i ponder those words, I think about how many times this has happened. I have an idea or want to do something but it seems impossible. But I really want to do XXXX. So i begin to figure out how to make it possible and then it is.
The process of figuring out a seemingly impossible situation or hearts desire is what unravels its solution. And the unraveling is actually the journey that creates us..not so much the final destination but the journey.
The thinking, the trouble shooting, the planning, the dreaming, the focusing and the envisioning it as real IS the life part.

As a spiritual being making the most of this human experience, I can make changes in my life just by changing my beliefs about the outcomes of my dreams and instead making them happen.

Come with me on that journey and lets see what reality we can create!!!

So fun!!!

more thoughts..

A good friend on her blog writes "I want to be known, identified, recognized, not by what I resist or oppose but by what I love."
I have been mulling this over and how it applies to life and in particularly my life.
So many things I am against or comment about that i oppose or attitudes I fight against when it comes to women are who people think I am. And I am those things. But do people also see me for the things i love?
Thunderstorms. Pregnant Women.A good book on Vampires. Babies.Godiva chocolates. Breastfeeding. Cup of herbal tea on a cold winters night with a roaring fire and a old quilt. Sleeping in on a cold morning. A full Moon and its basking rays or a Dark moon and its rejuvenating powers. Crying at a movie of emotional intensity. Playing with my new toy the IPAD. (ROFL).

Thats who I am more than the things I oppose. Who else knows this but me? Very few.

I call up my names...

I call up my names: Woman who had been born in the arms of a woman and welcomed home. I shout truth-teller, silence-breaker, life-embracer,death-no-longer-fearing, woman reunited with her child self. I sing woman who is daughter, sister,lover and mother to herself. I hum woman planter, gatherer, healer. I drum woman warrior, sire, women-who-stands-firmly-on-her-feet, woman who reaches inward to her centre and outward to the stars. i am woman who is child no longer, woman who is making herself sane, whole. --Andrea Canaan


I found this piece of paper with this strong woman chant on it..i dont know where it came from or when i saved it..but it found me and i am saying it again.