Hope
is Contagious
“Man
needs difficulties. They are necessary for health.”
Carl
G. Jung
Every time
I read this quote from Jung, I just want to reach out and slap him. In my
experience, life hands us difficulties whether we need them or not. The best we
can do is try not to make them worse. And, if we can find some meaning in them,
that’s icing on the cake.
Let’s
face it, nobody in their right mind likes to feel pain—not physical pain and
not emotional pain. We all know that life includes both and we’d better know
how to navigate the rapids as well as the open water. But, unless we are masochistic,
we don’t go looking for pain.
Like it
or not, pain is a normal part of life here on the blue planet. And, according
to Barbara Brown Taylor, when it comes to visit us, we can be creative in how
we deal with it. In her book, An Altar in the World, she includes an
entire chapter on “The Practice of Feeling Pain.” Her concluding paragraph says:
“There will always be people who run from
every kind of pain and suffering, just as there will always be religions that
promise to put them to sleep. For those willing to stay awake, pain remains a
reliable altar in the world, a place to discover that a life can be as full of
meaning as it is of hurt. The two have never canceled each other out and I
doubt they ever will, at least not until each of us—or all of us together—find the
way through.” (p.173)
People
do run from pain. Sometimes I do, too. But if you are suffering right now, and
you are finding life hard, just know that this too is a cycle. The image that
comes to mind is a spiral galaxy in which some of the arms are in shadow, and
appear to be dark, but as they spin around slowly, they come into the light.
You discover they are made of stars and planetary systems every bit of bright
as ours. They were just in their cycle of darkness.
Each of us has a cycle of
darkness. It’s part of being human. When we are there, we can reassure
ourselves that this is temporary, ask for help, and allow its meaning to come in its own good time. Take the hand of someone you trust and allow them
to lead for a while. Hope is as contagious as any virus. Allow others to lift
you up.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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