Bring me your tired, your poor, your homeless stressful thoughts…First Friday

You may be familiar with a poem about the Statue of Liberty in the United States, written in 1883 by Emma Lazarus. 

I rather like thinking of her poetic words as if they were applied to our thoughts, which we’re so often banishing, dismissing, trying to change or trying to control. 

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Doesn’t it seem as if our stressed thinking is tired, poor, wretched? Homeless? Tempest-tost? 

Goodness, yes.

I think of the four questions of The Work as the lamp, a way to walk through a door into….sanity, on solid ground. 
Whether you’ve had thoughts like: I need more time! She rejected me! I can’t take it anymore! 

Or, even the greatest difficulties we humans face: loss, illness, despair, death, tragedy, suicide.

(We recently sat together in the Year of Inquiry for a most powerful investigation on a young man’s suicide known well by one of our YOI family). 

You might think “how could answering four questions help in THIS situation?”

I find it does. Far more powerfully than often expected, if you’re willing to truly answer the questions. 

We can’t change the world, but we certainly can find peace in our thinking about the world. 

Where do you long to breathe free?

Always no fee, First Friday is offered almost every single month on the First Friday at 7:45 am. (Note: in December it’s 12/13). 

This month we are using zoom. Come by video (you can turn on or off your sound or your video–whatever if comfortable for you). You can also dial in with your phone.  

Join us here: 

Or,  dial by your location:+1 669 900 6833 US (San Jose)+1 646 876 9923 US (New York)
Meeting ID: 988 954 937

This is the new link for every future First Friday.

To see the calendar of First Fridays and all things Work With Grace visit here. 

Give The Work–the four questions and turnarounds–your tired, poor, huddled beliefs that cause suffering. Those beliefs yearning to be free, to come out into the light fby wy of inquiry in this human experience. 

Send this lost, homeless, tempest-tossed thinking keeping us awake at night, agonizing, worrying, fretting, irritated, depressed….

….to a golden shore, a lamp called The Work.

 
Everyone is welcome to First Friday. Listen-only, sharing, the ones willing to do The Work out loud. 

Everyone. 

Much love, Grace