Bear the beams of love

beams of love.” -William Blake

It can be so easy, when faced with something senseless or heart breaking, to want to batten down the hatches of your soul. I myself have felt this urge acutely in the past 24 hours.

When we hear news of a horrible tragedy, such as the recent murder of three young surfers in Baja, it can be easy to want to armor ourselves against the pain. To say, ‘never again.’ Never again will I risk. Never again will I trust. Never again will I venture out into the unknown. It is too dangerous. It is too risky. It is not safe.

Or when something happens in our very own community, right here at home, where we realize that those who are supposed to ‘keep us safe’ are actually the ones doing the damage. It can be so easy to want to seal everything up tight - to defend ourselves against the feeling of being vulnerable or worse, impotent. Not only to seal ourselves up, but to also to put our guard on high alert, vigilant against any threat.

Or when you hear of friends unexpectedly losing a beloved equine companion, not ‘just a horse’ but a partner on a journey of transformation and learning. “If I don’t let myself love and live that deeply then I won’t have to experience the loss.”

These three events, each very different, but all tempting me to batten down the hatches and protect myself. As though, in so doing, I could somehow seal myself off from having to feel the pain of heartbreak, loss, and vulnerability.

So, when I heard the mother of two of those surfers giving a statement to the press I was not only touched by her words, but challenged by them as well. She spoke of her two sons, sharing about what they loved, how they lived. It was a tiny window, a small glimpse of knowing them. It would be beyond understandable for her to have warned us, to tell us to be vigilant, to protect ourselves against the awful and senseless tragedies of this world. But those were not her words of challenge.

She ended her statement with this: “Now it is time to bring them home to family and friends and the ocean waves in Australia. Please, live bigger, shine brighter, and love harder in their memory.”