Oh life, you give me too much opportunity to receive your difficult gifts. You ask me to let go of my desires, my expectations, my wants, my will-- the my, my, my that drives me to distraction, anxiety, fear. You ask me to practice seeing the present apart and aside from my wish to craft existence into something easy and comfortable the recliner and slippers I would opt for over this narrow path these sharp stones that cut and bleed. And life, practicing the art of accompaniment seems never ending as I stumble in descent alongside those I hold dearest through dark canyons. We long for illumination and the river coursing the valley floor where we might drink of life. Instead we travel through fractured families and ailing health down through loss of job and identity, mental faculties and sense of self down amid despair and death. Hands skimming striated walls, we are dwarfed by enormity as we touch the long history of the world and our very small places in it. Oh life, accepting what is, along with our insignificance is such a difficult task. Difficult too, to give thanks in every circumstance, to love the fleeting and fragile. More difficult still to cling to nothing but this moment to find hope and peace in breath alone—And so life, we must practice again and again the art of embracing your difficult gifts.
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I began blogging about "This or Something Better" in 2011 when my husband and I were discerning what came next in our lives, which turned out to be relocating to Puget Sound from our Native California. My older posts can be found here.
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