You know how some people are all about the angst, anger, and/or sorrow?  Think of a moody actor, raging singer, or heartbroken poet.  I am NOT that.  I’m quite the opposite, as I’m wired to want ALL the good feels and NONE of the rest.  At least that’s how I am when I’m not acting from my best and highest self, as on good days my predisposition toward positivity is meant to infuse dark with light, sorrow with gladness, and so on, rather than ignoring the messiness of life.  I share this to set up some profound words from Krista Tippett in “Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into the Mystery and Art of Living”:

The core of life is about losses and deaths both subtle and catastrophic, over and over again, and also about loving and rising again. The cancer, the car accident—these are extreme experiences of other trajectories we’re on—aging, the loss of love, the death of dreams, the child leaving home. Grief and gladness, sickness and health, are not separate passages. They’re entwined and grow from and through each other, planting us, if we’ll let them, more profoundly in our bodies in all their flaws and their grace.”

I love how she says life is about a stream of losses and deaths, big and small, AND then “loving and rising again.” We’re made to fly, which means we’ll also have rough landings and crashes. The key, I think, is to learn from those rough patches, so we can soar again. The path to flourishing and wholeness involves, well, the WHOLE of life and you and I, warts and all. The purpose of life, I believe, is love. Our time here is a school of love, which means EVERYTHING is our teacher … when we realize it. So, today I invite you and I to practice letting struggles, losses, hardships, and deaths in life be our teachers. Whether it’s in us, another person, and/or a situation, let’s see it as a lesson on how to better FLY!

 

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Grace and peace,

Lang