Presence in Pain

Holy mother
The one who nurtures us in her womb
Birther of the rocks, the pebbles, the pedals and all the people placed and knitted into this world.

This world.
A world full of complexities, of creatures and creativity.
There is so much to live for in the beauty of these crevices.
We can feel it in our feet, in the wiggling of our toes against the carpet of this floor.
For we know underneath, our connection to this earth and so much more.

We can feel it in our breathing.
In the magic of our lungs expanding like the galaxy stretching into infinite nothingness.
The everything of existence.

Beating.
The organ of connection we take for granted.
Our heart that connects us to all other beatings and rhythms of this world.

Our heart.

Connected to those who feel surges of pain in every moment they remain, a part of these complexities, creatures and creativity we call earth.

With every breath a stabbing sensation
there is no cessation.

With every step a numbness, a deconstruction, a disintegration of the body until walking is no longer.
These feet lay limp, bundled in the linens of life support in hospital beds,

Waiting
Waiting
Waiting.

Holy mystery, who births healing and pain, life and death, and who tears down our dualities of what is right and what is wrong for there is none.
May we hold your breathing, your beating, your walking of mystery
to nurture and listen and scream in the birthing of life and the birthing of death,

for our sisters and brothers,
our coworkers and strangers,
for animals, trees and neighbours
and ourselves.

Give us the strength to be present to the pain,
to see the beauty in journeying the heavy way
with the burdened and brokenhearted.
To live into this abundance of nothingness,
holding the gaze with arms wrapped around one another,
so that we can feel our hearts beating together in the womb of your expansive galaxy

Now and forever

Amen.