Life As It
Is
“It
might take a while, but eventually we learn that accepting life as it
is—learning to shape ourselves to it, rather than forever trying to
wrench it to our own designs—is itself a virtue. It opens our souls
to consider what parts of the present challenges of life must be
changed—and must be accepted.”
Joan
Chittister (Danny Comes Home; Parabola, Summer, 2016)
Yesterday, I spent
several hours with my two sons, hauling furniture out of my house to
the downstairs porch so that the auction house can come this week and
pick it up. Pieces of furniture that had belonged to my great aunts,
my parents, my grandparents, and me. Furniture that I had held onto
for my entire adult life. Furniture that I sometimes forgot about
because it was so familiar. Suddenly, it had to go. I wanted to clear
space. All sentimentality dropped away. It was time.
Life changes. Each year,
each decade, brings changes that we expect and changes we don't
expect. We, or at least I, spend far too much time wishing, and far
too little time accepting and moving on. Wishing things were
different, wishing we could afford this or that, thinking about what
we would do if only...And all that time, life is changing and moving
on. It moves like a river—sometimes so slowly you can't see it, and
sometimes rushing and churning. We can either spend our precious time
here resisting change, building dams to try to contain it, or we can go with
the flow.
Lao-Tzu, ancient
philosopher and author of the Tao Te Ching, wrote: “Life is a
series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them; that
only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow
naturally forward in whatever way they like.” I'll bet that most of
us reading those words have an instantaneous resistance to their
implications. For Westerners, it sounds like throwing in the towel,
giving up, etc. But in truth, it is a way of conserving energy for
what truly matters. When we learn to hold out our hands and welcome
the unknown without resistance, we will be free to embrace whatever
comes.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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