Surround me, mystics, in this time of turbulence.
I don’t ask that you help me escape. I don’t ask 
that you rock me to sleep. I ask that you allow me 
to see you for the self-emptied, Christ-filled persons 
that you see yourselves to be. Show me the way from 
ego to unity with all — all humans, all nature, all 
creation in utter compassion. Help me when I leave 
the house, get in the car, venture out and encounter, 
yes, encounter rudeness, anger, entitlement, class 
and ethnic privilege, reckless abandonment of concern 
for others. Help ease my belligerent indignation, 
which masquerades as “righteous” indignation, but, 
which only fills my heart with anger, thus upsetting 
the perfect unitive balance of body, mind and spirit — 
each’s internal trinity. Anxiety permeates the air 
along with the virus. Everything wrong is up and 
everything right is down, down, down. Help me give 
up everything that divides me into a camp opposed 
to other camps. Help me to see the humanity in others, 
the me in them, the Christ in them, the Christ in me.  
Help me see the singularity of Love desiring to break 
free of the false identity. Help me to be one, see one, 
live one with the One Holy Trinity of sacrifice, mercy, 
justice, peace, compassion. Help me see and be a fellow 
traveler, a soulmate to everyone and everything I meet. 
Help me breathe free in the universal company of human-
ity. Help me be free. Oh, and by the way, do you think 
I could have the comforting, compassionate, soothing, 
wise and wonderful voice of Thich Nhat Hanh? No? Oh, 
all right. 
 
*idea from long overdue visits with the mystics