A New World

To heal, we must feel

“What was that?”

“I think he’s saying, ‘Blessed are the cheesemakers.’”

“What’s so special about cheesemakers?”

In the 1979 film Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the eponymous British comedy troupe portrays the people in the very back of the crowd at the Sermon on the Mount. They are straining to hear these timeless teachings, which is funny partly because we can relate to the difficulty. The word they mishear is “peacemakers,” and they were to be the children of God.

These folks are anything but peaceful. They are bored and restless (“Let’s go to a stoning!”). They are frustrated and rude (“Blessed are the big noses!”) But something makes them stay. 

 “Blessed is the Greek,” one character relays back to the crowd. “He’s going to inherit the earth!”

“Did anyone catch his name?”

“Meek!” 

Even when one of them hits on the right word, they miss the point. Jesus is telling them that meekness—humility, letting go of striving to be more or to have more—will lead them to a far richer inheritance: belonging to the earth and creation.

There people think Jesus is giving a nice little gift to another less fortunate group—people “who have had a hell of a time.” The blessing is meant for them—and for us. All who gathered there lived lives that included hellish times.

Still, how could this uneducated bunch be expected to have the qualities of heart and mind that would help them receive what is being offered? Their lives were so limited, so mired in toil, sweat, and tears. But the evidence is that this is exactly the kind of people who were drawn there, probably making a long hot trip on foot, complaining all the way. 

 And they stayed. They didn’t wander off to watch a stoning because despite their limitations, under the smallness and meanness of their identities, there was a vast capacity for the timeless. They were there because they were suffering—and sick to death of their pain-riddled, oppressive, time-bound lives. They sought a way out. 

What they learned is that what they sought—what we all seek—is already within us. The Kingdom of Heaven is within. It isn’t a special realm promised to a special few, to worldly kings or cheesemakers or Greeks. That timeless realm is in all of us. And suffering itself is the portal. 

We all know in our bones what it means to suffer. It is inherent in each of our lives. Nothing is ever exactly the way we want it to be. Everything, every job and relationship and possession, and everyone we know, is subject to change. People and institutions are cruelly limited and unjust. Try as we might, we can’t control reality or stop the changes that keep coming. We can’t make our pleasures stay or avoid loss. We can’t stop the merciless passage of time. Our minds are clouded by grasping and aversion and a powerful need to escape. We long to be really seen and loved. We long for permanence in a world that won’t stand still.

And this great teacher brings us this paradoxical teaching: The way out of suffering—the way to stop time—is to be with it. We must be willing to live the drama of our lives. To heal, we must feel.

The instructions are simple: Be receptive. Be present. Let yourself grieve and know the peace that comes in the wake of tears. Be a peacemaker—reconciling yourself to reality instead of battling it at every turn. Give up all hope of escaping heartbreak and notice the freedom of belonging to creation.

Be still and be willing to not know. Come out of the isolation of your thinking and how it feels to be here. Touch the earth. Give up all efforts to escape this planet and our imperfect and time-bound little lives here. Notice that this act of surrender —accepting our lives completely—opens you to a presence that is beyond your limited intellectual understanding.

There is a famous contemporary saying: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” In the midst of the inevitable suffering of life, all humans—even those who don’t believe—reach out to a higher power, a greater source of love and clarity. In every authentic spiritual way the lesson is the same: what we seek is already within us. The timeless cannot be found “out there” in the future or the past. It can only be here now. Where else can it be but present?

We dwell in mystery. This great truth of our existence is sometimes experienced by us as wondrous—looking up at the night sky, awed by the vastness of the cosmos, or gazing into the eyes of a beloved, marveling that we have come to be loved by such a luminous being. But mostly the mysterious nature of life is a torment. 

We feel fragile, ill prepared, and out of balance, shadowed by danger much of the time. We want to feel safe and in control but in spite of all our efforts, life is uncontrollable, moving, bringing unexpected and unwelcome difficulties. We are each in our own way like that ragged bunch on the fringes of the Sermon on the Mount, wanting to know what is happening but unable to make sense of it all.

In times of real trouble, even hardcore atheists remember how it feels to pray— reaching out beyond our own thinking, our own data, to a greater intelligence that might lift us out of whatever bind we happen to be in—the white water carrying us over the cliff, the dark prison cell of uncertainty. This attitude of outreach is the language of childhood, of our earliest DNA. 

And in the midst of that beseeching we discover what children and our ancient ancestors discovered: the way is not up but down. Below the frantic thinking mind there is a deeper mind that is as calm and receptive as still water. Under the heart that is like a clenched fist there is a heart that is as vast and deep as the ocean. The great source of love and awareness we seek is within. 

The root meaning of “understand” is “to stand between.” This is our human place: between heaven and earth. Ultimately, we know what needs to be done: surrender. After crying our hearts out, peace comes. It appears like a clearing in a dense forest. Exhausted from grieving, still and attentive in a world that includes loss, we know that even as we hold this suffering, we are held.

Blessed are those who grieve for they shall be comforted. Blessed are those who seek mercy for they shall discover that opening their hearts brings mercy. Blessed are those who seek to see rightly, to do justice, for they will find their way to a deeper life.

It begins by touching the earth of our existence, being humble. The meek shall inherit the earth. To be in touch with the earth means to be grounded. The English word “humility” comes from the Lain humus, which means “earth” or “fertile ground.” The word “human” also comes from the Latin humus. To be humble (or humbled) is to come out of the isolated world of our ego, our striving and defenses. 

To be humble is to be down to earth, to be aware in the present moment, experiencing life as it unfolds moment by moment. Humility is letting go of our grudges and our grandiosity, our stories of all that we have been through and all that might still happen, touching down here in the living present. It is being willing to not know. Receptive, without illusions, we can be our authentic selves at last. In the fertile ground of being—just being here—we can take root like seeds and flourish.

An ancient meaning of “bless” is to enlarge. We are larger than our thinking and our stories, bigger than our fear. We are all blessed, all capable of awakening to a timeless source of wisdom and compassion. To know it we must stop trying to stop time, accepting our flowing, changing, aging lives just as they are. We must be still.

Just be still and witness what is. “Be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart,” the poet Rilke wrote. The Latin root of the word patience is “pati,” to suffer. To awaken to the timeless, we must be with all that comes with time—not just pleasure and gain but pain and loss and rage and confusion. We must be willing to be alone–turning away from our distractions, choosing authenticity over all our attachments, our myriad ways of seeking validation outside ourselves. Slowly, with great patience and gentleness, we must find our way to a new home.

Many of the people who heard Jesus teach made long, hard journeys to be there. They braved hunger and thirst and many dangers. They walked—some of them for weeks—not knowing where they would find water or a safe place. They had no idea what to expect when they arrived. They just knew they couldn’t stay where they were. They were suffering and their people were suffering. They needed comfort and guidance.

Such journeys take us deeper into ourselves, stripping away everything that is not essential. By the time they arrived, even the group that Monty Python portrayed, rough and rude as they were, were closer to their deepest longing. They needed to hear the instructions Jesus was giving. It was like coming upon a well of pure, clean water in the desert.

“What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”

I am not Jesus, and the small group listening to me was not receiving the Sermon on the Mount. But we were on a journey together to that deeper awareness. 

“Our practice is letting things be just as they are.”

A small group of us were meditating together outside in a little park. 

“Our practice is coming home to present.” 

My voice is naturally soft and raspy, so I’m used to people not hearing every word I say. I’m also used to people not understanding what I say, or finding it boring or objectionable.

“Isn’t the present moment here now?” asked someone. “Why do we have to come home to it? Also, I don’t like the word ‘home.’ I had a terrible childhood and I don’t want to go back.”

No matter. My words were just reminders, calling us out of our separate worlds of thought to touch the earth, to be in the body in the present moment, to open to receive our true inheritance.

We all suffer. We have all objected and fought hard to prevent this suffering in all its forms—aging, sickness, loss, not getting what we want, getting what we don’t want. But try as we might, we cannot stay where we are. Like it or not, we are on a journey. The ground is moving under our feet.

The journey to the timeless is not a solitary hero’s journey. We are not solitary actors brandishing swords. We are beings who have traveled a long way to listen or pray or meditate, daring to put our swords down and to be still. We must be willing to take off our armor and be willing to be vulnerable to what is happening, inside and out. We must suffer, bearing witness to life in its passing.

As we dare to do this, surrendering all hope of being spared, we may discover a new world. Just for a moment, we will glimpse light and warmth of our own being shining in the darkness of the unknown. ◆

This piece is excerpted from the Spring 2025 issue of Parabola, THE MYSTERY OF TIME. You can find the full issue on our online store.

By Tracy Cochran

Tracy Cochran is editorial director of Parabola. For more information, please visit tracycochran.org.