“Our personal demons come in many guises. We experience them as shame, as jealousy, as abandonment, as rage. They are anything that makes us so uncomfortable that we continually run away. We do the big escape: we act out, say something, slam a door, hit someone, or throw a pot as a way of not facing what’s happening in our hearts. Or we shove the feelings under and somehow deaden the pain. We can spend our whole lives escaping from the monsters of our minds. All over the world, people are so caught in running that they forget to take advantage of the beauty around them. We become so accustomed to speeding ahead that we rob ourselves of joy.” (Pema Chodron. When Things Fall Apart (Shambhala Classics) (pp. 40-41). Shambhala. Kindle Edition.)

“When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. ¹⁰ She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. ¹¹ When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.” (Mark 16:9-11)

Pema Chodron developed her book When Things Fall Apart as she gradually read through some teachings she had written over many years. She says, “I began to see that in some way, no matter what subject I had chosen, what country I was in, or what year it was, I had taught endlessly about the same things: the great need for loving-kindness toward oneself, and developing from that the awakening of a fearlessly compassionate attitude toward our own pain and that of others.” She seemed to return again and again to what she calls “groundlessness”.

What Pema Chodron calls “goundlessness” is what Buddhists call impermanence – the feeling that there is no ground under our feet. Her advice for us when we feel this way? She suggests we open our lives up to the groundlessness. When life leaves us feeling as if we are sinking, we often want to run as fast as we can to escape such feelings. Unfortunately, in running away, we can increase our suffering rather than reduce it. Or we push the feelings so deep within hoping to deaden the pain, only to find we become dead inside.

Rather than running away, or pushing the pain deep within, it is healthier to meet that pain, that loss, that suffering face to face. The way to find firm grounding under our feet is resist running, and instead to face our pain – embrace our loss – live on solid ground of G-d’s love, mercy and grace. Mary Magdalene, the one whom Jesus had cast out so many demons, could have lived her life in hiding, but there she was on the first day of the resurrection embracing her relationship with Jesus. As the Sunday school song goes, the wise person builds their spiritual house on the solid ground of Jesus Christ – who loves us despite our struggles.

Pastor Dave