Feet and Fingers of Clay

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

We are all fallible beings. In a moment of crisis we vacillate or perhaps instead we turtle up. Sometimes withdrawing into our shell will save us. Sometimes retracting into our own dark safe sanctuary will cause us greater pain. With all the book knowledge in the world we never know how we will react to that moment when we are called to give our best measure.

Sometimes our failure comes in being too tied to someone or some thing or some idea that we can’t view our world existing without. We can define ourselves by the person we date or marry. We can define ourselves by the home we picked and the neighborhood we live in. But all things fall apart. All things have flaws. To quote Joni Mitchell, “Our perfection will always be denied”. And then entropy will kick in.

So how do we move on from our failures? Ah there is the rub. Familiarity provides us with comfort. Routines prop up the artifice of our personality. Fear limits what we are willing to reach for. To quote another old popular song, “Life is change, how it differs from the rocks”. Well, it differs from the rocks primarily in the short duration of life and the constancy of unending change that buffets our lives that short span.

Last night the news was challenging.  A piece of a discussion cloaked in a clinical monotone provided some bad, if not already suspected, news.  No my cancer has not returned.  But it was information that carried that kind of connotation.  Hearing it gave greater weight to a pain already present.

How I respond to the news will say a great deal about the world I live in and as to who I am.  Funny thing the clinical voice talked about acceptance.  Good golly, has that not been a topic I have been struggling with for literally ever?

The human heart can be warm and loving. The human heart can be cold and hurtful.  The human heart can be so confused by the real ways of fallible mortals that it does not know what to do next.  Conflicted and baffled, the human heart may not see the many paths forward. My hope is that my heart has the chance and capacity to be a guide to those in need.