The face of equanimity

My friend Anita Feng, who makes these glorious raku sculptures, has informed me that she no longer refers to them specifically as Buddhas.  Now her website has the headline "What does equanimity look like?"

Gazing at this sculpture this morning, I thought of Mary, and of her patience as she moves through Advent, this final month of pregnancy, awaiting the birth of her son.  It seems to me that equanimity is that thing we work for when things have shifted, when we know change is coming -- or has arrived -- and we are powerless to control it; when we try to understand there might be some larger plan at work than we can ask or imagine; when we try -- instead of asking for specifics -- to pray, "Not my will but Thine be done;" when we, however rarely, find it possible to say with Mary, "Let it be unto me according to Thy word."

I'm not there yet, but I feel like I've spent much of my life working towards equanimity.  And some days it helps to look it in the face...