The Color of the Human Spirit
“The human capacity for burden
is like bamboo;
far more flexible
than you'd ever believe at first glance.”
(Jodi Picoult, My Sister's Keeper)
In my work as a journey-mate to sorrow I am a bearer of stories of human tragedy and loss. The phone rings; a shaky voice asks if they may come and water the couch at the Hospice office with their tears. Face-to-face, stillness fills the room - calm before the storm. Then comes the story... of a diagnosis, dread, months, weeks, days, and the bitter sweet aroma of death. Or perhaps it is a telling drenched in the loss of tragedy - vehicles, drugs, children, spouses; worlds shattered, communities broken.
I hear these stories, over and over - and I am grateful. I give thanks that I am privileged to sit at the feet of these mentors of human resilience. The mother who's son died of an overdose - her eyes hot with anger at a world gone wrong; her heart flayed and laid bare. She thinks she will die from her grief, but she will not. She will breathe again, smile again, and will love, with a ferocity to shake the mountains from their roots, the son she now holds in her heart.
“Life doesn’t get easier
or more forgiving;
we get stronger
and more resilient.”
(Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free )
Robert, who's wife died from cancer after 40 years of marriage. He is lost, and anxious, and lonely to his bones. Jennifer's baby died in the womb one week before he would have been born. She feels shame, fatigue, and longing to suckle a son she never met.
I hear only a minute fraction of the sorrows of humanity; enough though to know that the human spirit is immensely powerful. It will be bent, crushed, torn, and violated; nature will bear down upon it with savagery; all manner of evil will assail it. And when darkness lays heaviest upon the human spirit it is then that it rises up and shouts at the universe, "I will not be overcome!"
“The oak fought the wind
and was broken,
the willow bent when it must
and survived.”
(Robert Jordan, The Fires of Heaven)
Whatever troubles you today know this - you are strong. You are bones of the earth, power of the wind, depths of the oceans, brilliance of lightening strong. If your heart is torn in grief - you will overcome. If you are drowning in despair - you will overcome. When you feel lost - you will overcome. When you are betrayed, violated, persecuted - you will overcome. Nothing has the power to assail you for you are made from Love and Love always overcomes.
I leave the last word to author, Steve Goodier:
“My scars remind me that I did indeed survive my deepest wounds. That in itself is an accomplishment. And they bring to mind something else, too. They remind me that the damage life has inflicted on me has, in many places, left me stronger and more resilient. What hurt me in the past has actually made me better equipped to face the present.”
(Steve Goodier)
The Color of the human spirit...
willow in the wind, roots in the earth, stars in the heavens.
Gold
is always
gold
always!
Bend it
melt it
stretch it
burry it
still gold
You are gold
Resilience
To Ponder Further:
- From the Bible: " For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." (2 Timothy 1.7)
- From Sikhism: "Make chastity your furnace, patience your smithy, The Master's word your anvil, and true knowledge your hammer. Make awe of God your bellows, and with it kindle the fire of austerity.
And in the crucible of love, melt the nectar Divine. Only in such a mint, can we be cast into the Word." (Adi Granth, Japuji 38, M.1, p. 8)
- From Hinduism: "
The Lord lives in the heart of every creature. He turns them round and round upon the wheel of his Maya. Take refuge utterly in Him. By His grace you will find supreme peace, and the state which is beyond all
change." (Bhagavad Gita 18.61-62)
