August 10, 2012
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Here is something that someone posted on Facebook:
“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP
I stayed away from Facebook (completely) for almost 5 consecutive days… and when I came back, I was floored to find out how interesting, witty, funny, capable, and amazing people are..This week I’ve been really swallowed up by boredom and a sense of futility. All that spells out i-n-g-r-a-t-e … it’s not that there aren’t things to do, but I often flail with despair at the not knowing of it all, letting my ignorance of the big picture paralyze me so that I forget to assign meaning to my present moment.
Missing the trees for the forest. I guess it’s possible when it comes to me.
But there ARE things to do. Today I read (well, re-read) a Sabrina book that I’d first read such a long time ago. I love STTW because her problems, however extraordinary or magical, actually always apply or dovetail with how I feel. And you’d think the solutions don’t apply since it’s just a TV show or book, but they do, for me! She is just independent enough as a character, getting in trouble with firm but loving aunts, to remind me to be more grown up.
I learned from reading today’s story that there is, that there still can be, good in this world. And that I can be a part of it, if I want to. That’s another thing — I’ve been down on myself, feeling like I no longer have the goodness I had as a child, bogged down by fear (and whatever is induced by fear).. finding it hard to believe that who I think I’ve become is not who I am. But doesn’t it say in James 4:6? ..But he gives us more grace.
