by Doug Bursch
Calm yourself by thinking deeply.
See beyond the temporal
and engage the eternal.
Calm yourself by not thinking.
Embrace the visceral beauty
and engage the moment.
Calm yourself in silent meditation.
Empty your thoughts,
be still and content.
Calm yourself by moving,
doing and speaking,
be active and engaging.
Calm yourself…
Calm yourself…
through never giving up,
through surrender,
through holding on,
through letting go,
through moving forward,
through stopping and abiding.
Find the answers to your problems.
Live with unanswered questions.
Abide in a community larger than your fears.
Walk away from the crowd and choose your own path.
Calm yourself…
Calm yourself! Dammit!
I rise late, to compensate for a lonely, restless night.
I put something on the page to prove the worth of the day.
I am not a storm, but I am not quiet waters.
I am wave crashing inward and out.
I ponder the poem and consider the photo. When I am going into deeper waters with a heavy weight upon my shoulders, I calm myself and remember…there is someone stronger, equipped to save, standing nearby to rescue me if necessary. So, I take a deep breath and another step.
To learn how to let go, sink into the wave & be absorbed by it. To exist in calmness & float on the top of it, buoyed by God’s strength & faithfulness & not to fear the circumstances that ebb & flow out of our lives. That is what I pray for. Thank you for the poem, after a week of caring for a dear father with Alzheimers, it helped me to feel like breathing again.
Do you ever feel there is pressure in trying to “calm yourself”. Sometimes, I think I need to “be calmed”.
*Go Hawks*