You can't have one without the other...

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow. -Melody Beattie

Happy Thanksgiving!

Pain

I’ve never read C.S. Lewis’s "The Problem of Pain". I suppose I have avoided it altogether, despite my reverence for his writing. Today in class we were asked what would make us effective teachers. I wondered how I was supposed to teach anything without being vulnerable to my own experiences, my own pain. But, how could I possibly be effective without it?

Feeling pain is not fun. Stating the obvious, I know. So what do we do when there is so much of it? When it is inescapable? We must adapt somehow. How could I allow the emotions I experience to simply pass through me and not be transparent?

At times it’s as though the tears flow from my person while my mind remains unaffected. But as I sat in class, I could not imagine how I would explain why, should I sometime reveal intense emotion when teaching concepts I had learned were true. True not only because I had experienced them, but because of the degree to which I had experienced them.

While I’ve decided that when at all possible I don’t want to feel pain, I cannot avoid the visits of my intimate and frequent companion. It’s not even a matter of whether or not she is a welcomed guest. She has become a featured reality, like breathing, outside of the realm of choice. Inviting her in is unbearable. Keeping her out is impossible. I wish to stop fighting her, allowing her instead to simply be. To resist my contempt for her and look in her face, acknowledge her presence, and continue on.

Joy, I am told, exists in pain’s opposition. Yet her supposed reality continues its elusion. Are they co-existent, and do I simply lack the ability to recognize both? Or must pain be eradicated to make room for her sister?

I don’t have the answer. Maybe C.S. Lewis does. For today, I surrender to the pain, not in defeat, but in simple acceptance to the absence of greener grasses. Today, I make peace and hope that its presence will belie that which I wish to keep hidden in plain sight.

Pendulum Swing

Learning.

As a missionary I kept a journal... and the one entry that has found itself back in my mind throughout the years is one simple phrase that came to me early one morning in a cockroach and mosquito infested apartment. "Keep learning and you'll remember why you're here."

I'm not certain I have completely figured out what that means, even now, 15 years later. But, it's still in there, at times plaguing my mind, ever pervasive and pestering away like a little woodpecker. Consistent little bugger.

When I am reminded, I often think of one specific peculiarity of learning that I have always tried to avoid. The pendulum swing. Finding myself stuck in some type of ineffective thought process or behavior, it has always been a relief to recognize the error of my ways and know that I could soon be free! Soon I will be all that I can be! Right?

Until... I realize that in trying to "fix" it... I swing to the extreme... the other end of the continuum. Maybe... just maybe... instead of trying to control it by convincing myself I am somehow adept enough to carefully land in the middle, I could just hang on and enjoy the ride.

Weeeeeeeee!!!