Sunday's Inspiration

Wisdom tells I am nothing.

Love tells I am everything.

And between the two

my life flows.

Nisargadatta Maharaj

Having survived the inhumanity of the Holocaust and the death of her husband, Dr. Elkhanan Elkes, the revered elder of the Kovno Ghetto in Lithuania, Miriam Elkes told her son, years later, of two objects that sustained her.  "One was a piece of bread, which she always hid about her person; the other a broken piece of comb.  

She kept the bread in case someone needed it more than she; and no matter what, morning and night, she would comb her hair to affirm her person.

What Miriam Elkes carried, and how she used what she carried, is a profound example of how the spirit can turn ordinary objects into living symbols that can help us live. 

For what she carried--the bit of bread and her broken comb--and why she carried them, speaks to the wisdom of love itself, and makes me ask, What small thing do we each carry that we can give to others more in need than we, and what constant gesture do we each carry by which we can affirm our person?

To carry these questions alone is life-sustaining.  For to carry the smallest crust of bread or truth that we can offer others always remind us of two essential facts; that we do not live this life alone, and that no matter the severity of our own circumstance, we have something to give to others.  The fact of this does not invalidate our pain, but affirms our worth, that even in pain we can be of value.

We all live somewhere between nothing and everything and to reenact, along the way, the smallest gesture of valuing your life is to carry out God's work.  Only by affirming our person can the human stalk of spirit break ground and grow into something free.

*Center yourself, and breathe your way to the spirit's pause that waits beneath whatever hardship you may be facing.

*As you breathe slowly, let your heart bring to your awareness what small thing you have that you can offer others more in need than you.

*As you breathe freely, let your spirit give your body a gesture by which you can affirm your person.

*Breathe in and affirm your person, breathe out and offer your gifts to the world.

Taken from Mark Nepo's book. The Book of Awakening, pg.339