Here in New England winter cold surrounds us. We need warmth to protect us not just from the freezing weather but also from the iciness of disregard. We are vulnerable beings that need each other’s care.
There are so many structures mankind has created in order to be sheltered. There are lean-tos, tents, cardboard boxes, yurts, earth burrows, teepees, cottages, McMansions and castles. It is very hard to be a furless animal without some form of exterior protection. Why not acknowledge how much we need buffers from the wind? Can we hold in heart, mind and action people who are homeless. They may be a few blocks from where any of us live. Having shelter, isn’t there something we are called to do or share to shelter others?
Phrases Posted on Facebook, January 2019
When the power goes out, no lights, no heat, and no way to cook food, sometimes no water . . . our shelter is shaken. We have a chance to feel the truth of our basic vulnerability. That is a good thing because we can then remember to embrace a deeper sense of shelter–the companionship of others. Maybe it will be simple like the body warmth of our spouse under a common pile of blankets. Maybe it will be thinking together to solve a challenge. Whatever it might be, the truth is that we need the shelter of each other’s wings.
What feels like shelter (other than a roof over our heads) is different for each of us. For some, it is being remembered and visited. For others, it may be having precious time alone. For still others, it is a connection to Spirit. These are all important. When we take care to shelter our deep need, we are more apt to shelter others as they need.
It doesn’t appear that folks who are super capable and consistently productive need shelter. They do, even though they may not ask for it. Perhaps more than anything they need a place to lay their tired heads as well as the shelter of our prayers. All of us need that, but the people who carry a lot for others may need it far more than we realize.
Have you ever considered that a well thought out routine for your days is a form of shelter? A good structure (that includes fun, creativity, rest and spontaneity) is like a well-constructed house you can really live in.
A huge gift of shelter we can give one another is acceptance. Different from approval, acceptance is the generosity of spacious inclusion. We all belong to the whole of life in some way. Acceptance is the dynamic practice of giving one another a sense of equal belonging and therefore of shelter.
I usually think of shelter as something that will hold me a good long while. The other day I experienced that a long exhalation in a difficult situation gave me a moment’s shelter. When I repeated the exhalation quietly, so that it remained private to me, I found that breath itself, whether in exhalation or inhalation, could be sensed as ongoing shelter.
It’s important to celebrate and be grateful for people like Martin Luther King and others who have risked their lives for others. Their courage and actions have given shelter to countless people in ways that have changed history. Let’s not forget them, or that we can be inspired by them to take meaningful, sheltering action.
Imagine today when it is cold, rainy and snowy that any of us could be sick, alone and homeless. Imagine what even a little shelter might mean to us. Please consider calling The WARM Center, 401-596-9276, and buying the RiverFlow CD, Warmed: Songs of Heart and Spirit, for $18.00. It’s a gift you can give to yourself or to a friend for Valentine’s Day. When you do you will also be giving a Valentine to a stranger who may be very wet and cold today. Here is a link to a recent article about The WARM Center and the CD in the New London Day:
https://www.theday.com/article/20190116/NWS01/190119534
Some people can only feel sheltered behind a thick wall either along a physical border or around an inner vulnerability no one may touch. To seek shelter in agreements, in mutual goals and in kindness is safer in the long run, but it takes effort and guts.
Imagine what would happen if every one of us daily gave conscious shelter to something or someone. Wouldn’t the atmosphere of fear and distrust lift a little? It’s not hard, in thought and simple actions, to contribute something toward the sheltering care of something or someone. It simply requires willingness and a personal decision to begin. We can be about significant change one small step at a time.
I think we have all met lighthouse people at one time or another in our lives. They emit such good vibes they give shelter just by being. Here’s a great quote from Anne Lamott. Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.
There are so many books out now about the benefit of de-cluttering, how it gives us more space in our dwellings and more freedom in our beings. The extra coat in the closet is not giving shelter to anyone. It’s time to give it away. Everyday is a day to share our extras . . . an extra smile, an extra hand, an extra meal, an extra hand. In sharing our extras there will often come a felt sense of more freedom and more space. The beneficiaries of such shelter are really our selves.
