January 18, 2021
For Giving Endings
By Amba Gale
Today is a time for completion. We are ending one era of our lives, here in America, and beginning another. We are ending one year of our lives, here on the planet, a year of great disruption, grief, chaos, change, and unpredictability, and opening ourselves to learning commensurate lessons that come from us wanting to be ALIVE and vibrant, even as we move through this pandemic – lessons in resiliency, fluidity, in being centered, in gratefulness, and in faith.
Often when something is ending, we find, in that ending, the inkling of a new beginning. And yet, while the future holds the space of possibility, that possibility becomes more real, more available to us when we complete what has past, when we let go of our resentments, our regrets, come to peace with what is incomplete, with what, perhaps, have been intentions dashed, commitments not fulfilled, with learning to dance with this flow of uncertainty, to dance, without resistance.
Forgiveness is a key to completion. My poem, “For Giving Endings,” offers an opening for both intentionally causing endings and completion and also opens us up to forgiveness – that most powerful of all pathways for coming to peace, and for getting free. For returning ourselves to love, a kind of unconditional love for ourselves, for others, and, even for life itself, and an allowing in all the circumstances of our lives, as guides as teachers, as openings for trust, and for Faith.
As Brother David Steindl-Rast says, in his book, A Listening Heart, “When we can no longer make sense of a given situation, we have reached the crucial point. Now arises the challenge that calls for faith.”
Julian of Norwich, the 15th century mystic, knew well of Faith, when she counseled us to consider the possibility that “All is well” even when, to quote my poem, “the wild waves beat at your shore, sweeping your house clean, and you may tumble, losing your hold on Earth.” That has been the case for many of us this year.
I invite you, once more, to join me in crossing your next threshold in the months of February and March, as we “breathe in deep and give it all (including ourselves) the space to be a part – a part of an ending, a beginning, and an entrance to new start.”
