Gather our voices for light...

Can we create bridges of understanding?.....

I think about war.

I see images in my mind - children, women, men...all suffering, in pain. It's devastating.

I see my own two daughters reflected back to me in their faces. My heart breaks. It feels cut open, exposed....no, it feels like it's in a vice grip, seized and unable to beat.

I've heard the voices of people pleading, crying, asking for help....anguish expressed, distraught. Complete confusion and unable to fathom understanding for why.

And I'm sure there are so many, many reasons why.

I fear that the people who are our leaders in this world, who are making the decisions that impact humanity are failing us.

There must be another way, surely? There must be another way to lead, to see, to seek to understand each other that goes beyond bloodshed.

I don't know what the answers are - how do we broker peace between communities that have hurt each other? How do we see the humanity in each other? How do we find a way forward that seeks to build up, to provide assistance, to provide a bridge to each other?

Someone recently told me, "Hurt people hurt people." Meaning, hurt people hurt each other. It becomes a vicious cycle.

If I am in pain, I will make you feel my pain. That is the way many of us know how to operate.

And there are so many of us, who express this pain, and fail to receive understanding, compassion, or empathy.

I think this is often what's missing.

I think we want others to deeply understand us, to appreciate us, to value us. We want to be fully seen. To stand in our differences and not hurt each other due to them, but to be celebrated for these differences. To be allowed the freedom to express ourselves - and there lies the difficulty. Because what if what I want to express to the world is the thing that causes another person's pain?

Being on this planet is so complex. There are so many unanswered questions.

I, in no way, want to downplay the many complexities of the wars that rage all over the world. There has been too much history that has taken place to go into here.

With this post, I am also speaking to the pain beyond the current wars to the every day struggles we all face in our relationships and with ourselves. I only wonder if we have learned from our history, our past. Are we repeating the same mistakes?

How do we free ourselves of that?

I'm curious to explore if there is another way to exist on this planet. Maybe there isn't, but I will do my best to control what I can and create more good in the world.

The only way I know how to move forward is to hold onto hope. I try to keep my hope alive. I want a door open to it. I don't want my heart to be shut. And if that means I'll continue to feel pain, that the door that keeps my heart open to faith, is also the door that lets the pain inside, well then this is what I need to do in order to keep my humanity. To feel alive, and real, and good, and here, present.

Perhaps, if I continue to do that, I will one day find a way to manage, to hold all the complex questions in my arms, to hold the good and the bad, and still feel that life has value. That there is a reason to stick around and learn from these experiences.

That life will find a way. That we will all find a way back to each other.

My hope for you is that you can continue to access love in your heart, despite the suffering we're witnessing, despite the pain.

Here's an offering to you below. Listen and watch this beautiful piece of music being played. Notice how he gathers their voices. Notice how he conducts the music and brings it forth from their mouths.

Do you hear his words? How he says, "don't be afraid of the dark, in your heart you're going to find a way to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders" and later "...don't be afraid of the light".

There's so much beauty to unpack here, "In your eyes, so dark and open, there's light that leads me back to you".

Follow the light that brings us all back to each other. Find the beauty in the here and now. Where are you standing currently? Who is beside you? What are you deeply grateful for?

Sometimes the light we notice is in the movement of a smile. In the warmth of a hug. In the embrace of our children. In the collection of water after it rains.

In the small, seemingly unimportant moments.

Let's gather our voices. Let's speak from the inner recesses of our hearts. Let's give voice to light. Let's raise the frequency so that our light can reach even the darkest of places, and pull others out of despair, anger and hopelessness. Because that is the space where pain flourishes, where violence rages and breeds.

We have the capacity to create change. Don't lose faith.

The song is called "Little Blue".

Personally, I think he's talking about all of us. We are all "little blue".