Dancing in the darkness.

There are a lot of sad things happening in the world. There are lots of happy things, too. Tonight, however, I am most struck by all the disturbing happenings on planet earth. I often feel conflicted about whether to discuss them on this blog. Tornadoes, Australian fires, stock market woes, extreme hunger and poverty all over the world. Maybe I will try to come up with a once-a-week current events entry. I just watched a one hour documentary called "Inside North Korea." You should rent it. I am in shock; I sort of new what life there was like, but barely. And still, this movie was just the tiniest of glimpses.

Do you ever feel totally ignorant about what's happening in the rest of the world? And then, once you do know what's happening in other parts of the world, do you ever feel like "Now what"? That's how I am feeling. It is so important to educate ourselves and be aware of what's taking place throughout the world. And then, it seems like the next step is to recognize that we are intimately interconnected to these events and people. We are all part of the same family. And then what? It seems like saying a prayer or writing a paper is not a big enough step. I feel silly when I say prayers like, "Please God, be with the people of North Korea." Not that I doubt God's power; I think God is already with the people of North Korea. Sometimes I just feel that those kinds of prayers are an attempt/excuse to opt out of doing more. Hmmm. I will just keep pondering these sorts of things. Please let me know if you have thoughts or suggestions about how to stay in an active and intentional relationship with all that is happening in the universe. It seems like an infinitely huge but important task.

In other news non-global:

I am quite determined to overcome my fear of the dark. Today at chapel, the preacher focused on how important it is that we are able to keep on dancing in the dark places of our lives. Also, he talked a lot about how healthy it is to bring our private pains out into the public. And as congregations, we need to be safe spaces for people to bring their whole selves - pain and hurt and all the rest. Very cool. He mentioned the movie "Lars and the Real Girl" several times because there was a Leadership Conference happening at school focused on film. If you haven't seen the movie before, you should definitely rent it!

So, back to the goal: I am going to try to be okay with the dark tonight. In fact, more than just being 'okay' with the dark, I am going to EMBRACE the dark. It's a time of healing and restoration; there is nothing to be fearful of. No night light or lamps on for me! That probably sounds silly or embarrassing. But we all have fears, right? I wish we did have more places and spaces to be a little more open out the fears and worries we carry around with us. I was thinking if I do feel scared in the dark tonight, I could just start dancing around. Or maybe I will let myself light a candle. I figure overcoming this fear should've been one of my 50 goals for 2009. Instead, it's just a bonus goal.

Today for my CE project, I meditated for 5 minutes. I had to set a timer so I'd know when the time was up. I've never really done this before. Guess what? I found it quite tricky to quiet my loud brain. So I tried to focus on a color. Yellow. And then this popped in my head:

I was trying to shut out all the noise and thoughts and planning in my head, and I was focusing on the color yellow. And then a word popped up: ONE. I don't really know what that means other than that lately I have been thinking about how interconnected everything is. Maybe if I am feeling scared in my dark room tonight, I will pass the time by thinking about this some more.

I am going to try to stick wth the "5 minutes of silent time a day" idea. Once I got into it, it went by so very fast. I felt that I had only just closed my eyes.

I hope you find some time to dance in the darkness tonight.