Love and Suffering

                                                 

New Years week is the time when I  reflect on where I am, how I got here and where I’m headed. “What next?” she asks.  It’s not so much my making resolutions and setting goals as it is having a conversation with God and my spirit about what’s next in my life.
 
Last year I decided I wanted to know love, make that LOVE!  What I had in mind was a blue eyed guitar playing cowboy from Montana who paddles a red Caption. Yeah, that pretty much sums up what I thought love was. You gotta admit it’s original.  God must have had other plans because what I got was a 90 Day No Negativity Challenge that frankly kicked my ass sometimes. It seemed like a good idea at the time and in the end it was if I didn’t let my self think about it too much. I removed negativity and what was left was love, make that LOVE! Who knew.  I’m still waiting on the blue eyed guitar playing cowboy from Montana who paddles a red Caption.
 
One of the best parts of the experience was embracing the wonderful messy imperfection of the human experience. Love, fear, harmony, chaos, it’s all part of the human experience. Love is part of it and so is suffering.
  
If you are a human being and if you are reading this I’m assuming you are, if you are a human being you will suffer. You will tell a story of tragedy and sorrow.  The unexpected death of a friend, a life cut short too soon, a cherished child whose choices cause her and everyone around her needless pain. You will be blindsided and swept off your feet. You will break hearts and have yours broken and suffer from both. You will cry when you least expect to. If you are lucky you will learn from it.  It’s life.
 
 Suffering exists because we exist. It is part of the human experience.  We are part of that creation and the choices we make with it matters. What happens is important but what is just as important is our response.   It's how we respond to suffering that defines and helps make us who were are. Our reactions and how we interact with suffering often have more lasting effects on our lives than the event that caused the suffering.  We always have a choice.  It might be a hard choice to make but it’s still a choice and choices have power.

  The trick is recognizing that it’s a choice and being able to make it. It’s like that scene from one of The Raiders of Lost Ark films where the heroes come to the end of cliff and they are told to take a step. When they take the first step into what appears to be empty space a bridge made of stars appears for them. That’s faith.    “Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1. You have to take that step into what appears to be nothing and trust that God’s got your back. We are loved. Even when we suffer we are loved.

  This week I spent some time looking at my life, how I got here and where I’m going. I have an idea about what next but just an idea. I wouldn’t say no to that blue eyed guitar playing cowboy from Montana.  I know that I want to be happy and have fun.  I’m going to wear cowboy boots and eyeliner more often and add a little sass for good measure.  I’m not going to wait for permission to enjoy my life. I’m going to embrace my life as it is and savor the moments that present themselves.  What that looks like is any body’s guess. I hope it includes more fun and happiness, more music and rivers, more success and confidence and more love than fear.  There’s no getting around it. Making a choice between love and fear is part and parcel of journey, part of the wilderness experience of being human.  So, what’s it gonna be, love or fear? You choose.



                                                          Man's Search for Meaning

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Gift of the Ordinary

Image
    The greatest joys are in the small ordinary moments of our lives. It’s watching someone we love sleep, a cup of tea on a cold day, a thick mat when you step out of the shower. I’m finding that it takes courage to live in the fullness of these moments these days. Not because they don’t exist, but because we are bombarded with messages that tell us who we are and what we have is not enough. We are told in a hundred different ways that we don’t measure up, that the world is not safe, and something bad is just around the corner. It’s fear at its most insidious best. And I get it.  I get that we’re afraid, and I understand why. I’m not living under a rock. When I did my 90 Day No Negativity Challenge I learned one thing for sure, it’s either fear or love, baby. Fear is a soul sucking joy stealer that brings out the worst in people. We destroy our bodies and relationships, get into debt up to our eyeballs, and we test our poor children to death.  We finger poi...
Read more

Are You A Tootler?

Image
    Have I mentioned that I love my job? What other job lets you to literally touch the future? Where else do you get to read some  great books that you miss as a grown up? And let’s not forget recess, yeah, let’s hear it for recess. When was the last time you hit the playground? Eight year olds are fun to hang out with. My kids work hard and know how to have fun and they like my music! How cool is that? There are trade offs though.      You know the stocks the Puritans used? I’d bet you a dime and a smile that an eight year old came up with them.   Eight year olds have a very black and white sense of justice which translates into a whole lot of tattling.   They would sell their mother down the river and not blink an eye doing it.   I want to support their developing morality and be a model of that for them but mostly though I want the tattling to just stop ‘cause it is driving me bonkers! That’s the honest truth of it.     Now, ...
Read more

It's a Choice

Image
    Christmas is two days away.   The house is cleaned, decorated and the presents are wrapped. I’ve made brownies, six batches of Heath Bar Crisps, Potato chip cookies and I’m headed out the door to the farmer’s market to pick up the ingredients I need for   Christmas breakfast and Tim’s Ginger Cookies. You can never have too many cookies especially when you eat them with champagne for dinner.   I’m diggin’ myself and lovin’ my life. I am truly blessed.   I’ve always been blessed and deeply loved. It’s always been there even if I’ve haven’t been aware of it.  Keeping free of negativity helps me see the blessings that are in my life and there are more than I can count. Keeping free of negativity is a way of wiping mud from my eyes. It’s amazing how much goodness there is in the world when you can see clearly.      “Negativity is an addiction to the bleak shadow that lingers around every human form ... you can tra...
Read more