Shelter

I've been thinking along these lines lately, so I was surprised to come across Susan Stone's meditation, which I paste below:

Shelter

When all the darkness of a world gone mad with "me" and "mine"
presses against your heart with its dark futility,
watch the world and see what happens
when self becomes the measure of the truth,
no one way better or worse than another,
with no standard to give it value.
Relativism – a place with no verities.
What type of world is it
when millions of selves become the arbiters of what is right,
of what is holy,
what is worth believing,
each competing,
the child molester no less worthy of admiration
than the hero who rescues the dying,
where killing the sick and old seeming as good a deed as healing,
and children seem a futility of expense.

Listen to that cacophony of competing voices
drowning out a truth they do not want to face,
the fact that without family,
there is an empty hole in life,
where self-loathing shadows over the death of hope,
the fact that chasing sex and intoxication
will never sustain,
that things break,
heroes fail,
that isms are imperfect answers for that hole in their lives,
and that no matter how they veil the reality,
their choices are leading them to a nightmare world,
where they try to make shifting desires the centre of all,
turning the old granite of truth into quicksand,
unable to sustain a purposeless life.

Listen, and ask yourself,
have we not created the tower of Babel anew,
confusing our hearts, our spirits, our future
in our hubris to say Man, and not God is the center?

Where then, is the firm land
that will let you stand while the chaos grows,
as the centre cannot hold,
and things fall apart?

The answer was given to you in the life of a single person
sent here with one purpose,
to bring you home.
Even now, he calls through the bitter waters of modern life,
and offers that transformation
that creates a sanctuary against the storm.
Look upon his cross,
his tomb,
his resurrection and know
one greater than any man
has touched the world,
leaving a cross-shaped beacon pointing the way
to the place where heaven and earth come crashing together,
an island of meaning against the midnight,
bought with blood,
sustained by love.

Laugh at him as old fashioned as you cry against the dark,
or listen to what he has to say,
and find the purpose you were missing.


Click to go to Susan Stone's site