Flowers and Blood and Mercy and Miracles, and Repeat

Thank you to Teri Windling for this quote and image

Today, I lift many prayers and offer deepest love and sorrow to the victims of the horrific terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. An attack on one people of Spirit is an attack on all people of Spirit, and on all people. It is hard to find words, or the right words, in a world which often feels so full of horror for yet another horror. Only that I stand in solidarity with my Muslim brothers and sisters in New Zealand, the UK, in all lands.

Salam (peace) to the dead.

Salam to the injured.

Salam to the grieving.

Salam to all who are afraid.

Knowing that the last words of the first Muslim man to die were to the gunman; "Hello, brother", salam to all who walk with prejudice & hatred that their wounds might be healed and their hearts opened.

Salam be with us all.

I wrote this two years ago about another horrific act for which there were really no words and I will share it again and again, because we have to keep breathing somehow, and on some days it is very hard to breathe.

Flowers and Blood and Mercy and Miracles

Cherry plum. Image: Jacqueline Durban

...and today, as on so many days, many are weeping for their lost brothers and sisters, and for the seeming loss of hope and love and compassion, none of which is ever truly lost because we are human and humans hope and love and care, in spite of and because of it all.

And everywhere humans are at this moment lighting candles and lifting prayers to their God, or Goddess, or gods, or no god, and will care all the more fiercely because of a day like today, and some will hate and call it care and not the fear that it really is, and some will lift up weapons and some will lay down their weapons because they are sickened by it all. And no doubt tomorrow, somewhere, more will die needlessly and more candles will be lit and so we go on in our broken and bewildered way. Because this is what life is, or part of it anyway. It isn't worse than it has ever been. It just is.

And we don't have to say that 'they' won't win, because there is nothing to win and there is no 'they'. There is only us, spinning around on this messy, precious little planet filled with flowers and blood and mercy and miracles, and we have to make it work. And we might not know much but what we can know is that we are all going to die trying. And we don't have to say that we aren't afraid, because we are allowed to be afraid. And I won't be looking at images of people bleeding and dying on Westminster Bridge, or of a man lying dead because how it 'just is' twisted his heart into this act of violence. I will be thinking of the candles and lighting my own. And there are just too many words, and never the right ones, so I will just say that this is how it is. It isn't going to stop, or not any time soon, and so we must find a way to love life and one another all the more because of it. There is nothing else.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un

Arabic: إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعُونَ

English Translation: "Surely, we belong to God and to Him we shall return."

Sura Al-Baqara Verse 156.

Thank you to Fr. Rod Bower of Gosford Church, Christchurch for inspiring the 'salam' prayer.