Aligning with Grace

I took this picture in Dachau last year. It was such a haunting experience and I have thought of my time there over and over again. It was profoundly moving. And while the focus of that trip was something totally different - this is what I think of the most and it is what haunts me. A friend of mine told me her father had been held there. I cannot imagine what that must have been like. Since then, I have read many books on the need for ancestral healing and how the wounds of one generation are passed on to the next and the next... I felt compelled to thank the guide I had for teaching countless others about what happened in that camp, so that we would never forget. I asked myself then, how could this have happened? But the truth is, I knew. And we all know. And yet it continues to happen. Like many, I am profoundly affected by what is going on in Israel and Gaza. I am also very concerned about all of this escalating into something much bigger. I have many friends who are Jewish. And I ...

Reminders of the power of offering peace and blessings to others, sometimes arrives unexpectedly in our lives.  Like at Costco. Seriously! I was on my way out of Costco this morning, having run in just to get batteries for my new flameless candles which were destined for my fireplace. All I meant to do was to zip in - and just as quickly zip out. Being the introvert that I am, my favorite time to hit the stores is when they open or fairly early during the day, when they are still not relatively crowded or busy.  I was just on my way out, when the elderly Middle Eastern man who has worked there more than a quarter of a century greeted me. I had not seen him lately and had been wondering about him. He is always cheerful, mindful, and I often overhear him dispensing blessings to all he encounters as he checks our receipts and purchases. I stood there for a moment - it wasn't busy, mind you. I looked him in the eye, thanked him, and wished him a good day. He s...

Recently, a friend suggested placing my intentions in a special container - a prayer box, or jar, or whatever I might find suitable. It is a practice that I've turned to time and time again, but it seemed to once more draw me, in this moment, in our world, where there is so much need on so many levels. I had a prayer jar I have used in the past, but wanted something different, so I re-appropriated a small box with dancing Sufis, or "Rumis," as I like to think of them, which I had gotten in Istanbul. I wrote my intentions, and put them into this box and lit a candle, and sat down to meditate. I have done this many times before. But this time, I added the practice of surrendering my intentions. This does not come easily to me. Yes, like many, I ask for things often. But I also seem to have a roadmap for how things should go - how they should be solved. The notion of asking and surrendering, and trusting that all would be resolved in its own time, in the best possi...

I sit in meditation, mindful of all my Jewish friends, commemorating Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, on this beautiful and sunny fall day... I contemplate my sins - and give intent to cast them away - intending to do so with a ritual of Tashlich by the river, to follow my morning yoga class... I consider all the things within my soul that lay unforgiven. I consider all those that I need to forgive, and all those I need to be forgiven by as well... I even consider forgiving the unforgivable - unspeakable crimes such as those of the Holocaust, and those perpetrated in the Killing Fields of Cambodia, just to note a couple... I consider other examples of genocide and still other unspeakable crimes such as the rape of a child. There are others I do not wish to dwell on... After my class, I head down to the river with cracker crumbs in my pockets and empty them into the river where a swirling legion of tiny tadpoles circle around the crackers. I step into the river in my crocs as car...