Surrendering to Divine Mystery

I live in Africa part time. While here, I  often visit the market, schools, villages and orphanages in the area. Yesterday, I went to the homeless baby shelter. There were over twenty babies, between three weeks and three years old. Their home is cement with no electricity and smells of urine. There are flies everywhere and the heat is sweltering. Usually between five and ten women go to be with them; to play and read and hold them for a couple of hours.

Sometimes it is hard to know where to focus the little time I have while I am there. Shall I help to clean them, hold them, read to them, feed them or just let them crawl into my lap and rest? One of the older girls who is mentally challenged and as tall as I am, insisted on being carried around and so I carried her as long as I could. I noticed her bleeding and infected toe and tended to this. One of the babies I held had a scab on his cheek and was fevered so he just laid his head on my chest the entire time.

There were three little boys standing in their cribs when I first arrived. They were expressionless and seemed resistant to raising their arms as an indication they wanted to be picked up; as though even hoping might lead to more disappointment than they could bear. After asking them for a few moments, they raised their arms in an expectant gesture. Before I left, they were giggling and laughing as we tickled and teased each other. There was joy and light inside their eyes. Although our time together was brief, they experienced play and connection. They always cry when we leave. I have to remind myself that it is better for them to know touch, care and the bond of physically contact and then to lose it than to not experience it at all. Perhaps they will remember the love and delight mirrored to them from one of us, even though our time with them is so brief.

The smallest infants were barely 5 and 6 pounds and I wonder if they were premature or just malnourished. I was soaking wet when I left from drool, urine and my own body's profuse sweating. We left amidst the toddlers pulling at our clothes crying for more time from us to play with them. 

Mary Magdalene is my mentor, my spiritual guide and my teacher. Today, all I can do is wonder how the Divine Source of all allows for such poverty and deprivation. I do not understand this and aside from losing faith altogether and allowing cynicism and frustration to grow, I choose to trust there is great Mystery in the Physical and Spiritual realms. There is mystery that I do not understand and can not understand for now. I choose to trust that there is a Higher intention beyond the profound need of these small, precious children. I choose to trust there is some greater justice that is, for now, above and beyond my sight. For today, I will claim little insight to the wide mystique of a Holy One's plan and dominion.

There is great mystery in this spiritual life and today, although not comforted much with the belief, it is all I have.

Blessings to all and special blessings to those of us surrendering to the Mystery, 

Sally

Trusting in the Mystery of life and embracing what is unknown to us, opens the door for a deeper and more profound understanding. Today I embrace and honor my own not knowing as an opportunity to be with the mystery of the Divine.