Pain and Spirituality

When pain nailed me to the floor a few years ago, I turned to the spirit and prayer because the pain medicine didn't work. And I started thinking about my soul's path. As usual with me, my road is complicated. I had been feeling disconnected from the synagogue and in fact from Judaism in general for a long while. So after much thought I turned more and more to Buddhist studies -- specifically Zen. Zen concepts are integral in Eido/Kendo which I studied for so long. And I found a community of Shin Buddhists (very closely related to Zen on the Tree of Buddhist thought) near where I live. It is the first religious community that didn't feel threatening to me by the people who were already there. I am a sensitive (ha!) soul and part of the daily pain I go through physically with my myofascial is a hunching up of my shoulders to defend myself. I have hunched my whole life. But I don't hunch here and my "hunch" (you knew I would do that, didn't you?) is that I have finally found what I am told by several spiritual counselors is my soul's path. It fills that hole in my soul and offers me a way of giving back to the stream of life through compassion, serenity, community, food, and prayer. And the emptiness is lifting.