Skip to main content

As with light, there is darkness



As with many things in our lives, there is a requirement for balance. Life is a bit like the human body, fragile, complex, and unpredictable.

We know the story when the balance is off…. It’s generally bad, if not initially… it gets there.  The balancing act of life is encompassing and requires synchronizing various parts to produce a fluid and positive outcome. This all makes sense in the world of doing… but not so much in the world of being.  Of being human, filled with emotion, tossed about by life’s ups and downs.  That balancing act requires us to hurt, to push through the wall of emotion, and to either break through to the other side, or succumb and die. 

Think about emotions and their counter-point… With confidence, one must also know fear. With intolerance, one must also know empathy; with joy there is the shadow of sorrow. When the balance is off and one emotion takes the hill, we enter the danger zone. Danger is sinister, it smells vulnerability.

Danger creates chaos.  

 Chaos darkens our perspective. 

For me the dark times have done more than disrupt my daily life, they have changed my life… oddly, I would say I am better for it.  I wouldn’t say my life is better, for I don’t know what my life would be if it were different… but I believe I am a better person because of the darkness.  Color the world in darkness and somewhere light will shine….   Bring forth the hounds, and the fox with start.

I still get anxious when the darkness descends. When darkness creeps in, I want to run away and hide from everyone and everything; retreat to a safe space.  This I’ve discovered is my way of confronting the beast. I must meet the darkness so I can enter the light. The darkness overwhelms my body, causes my heart to race, my thoughts to run amok and anger and frustration to bubble within.  Once I’ve felt the chaos, like a wicked and furious storm, the calm enters.  The calm is rational thought, clarity in reality and the beginning of being able to address the problem or break down a situation. The beauty of time is that this process has become more familiar and I more adept at accepting it as part of my life. 

I still hate the darkness and the process of breaking through it, but as with most things, the more we do it, the more skilled we become.  I don't believe I will ever welcome the darkness, but now I can recognize its presence and have begun to build the tools needed to work through to the other side.   I wish this practice didn’t hurt my heart so much… but it does. Thanks be, I have enough in me to want to get to the other side. 




As with hope, there is fear
As with sadness, there is joy
As with anger, there is tolerance
As with loathing, there is longing
As with failure, there is accomplishment
As with darkness, there is light

©2020

Labels

Labels:
Location: Florida, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Seeing God Where I am

O God, who created all peoples in your image, we thank you for the wonderful diversity of races and cultures in this world. Enrich our lives by ever-widening circles of fellowship, and show us your presence in those who differ most from us, until our knowledge of your love is made perfect in our love for all your children; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.   Carolyn A. Rose I've had the distinct privilege in life to have traveled to various places, some vastly different from my home, and some quite similar.  Regardless of the magnitude of differences, I can always feel the uniqueness of the place. After a while, certainly I long for the familiar comfort of home... but I always return with a fuller heart and a more open mind. Then it's like a siren song calling me back to seek more, ask more, learn more and inwardly digest it to build me into a more understanding and compassionate being.  In a class I am taking, we were posed this question: How have ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Blessings

  Wyatt It's been over ten years since we said our final goodbye to the human form of our son. Following his death we created a nonprofit organization to help support the Wyatt Lambeth Legacy Welding Scholarship at Lively Technical College. Through this foundation, we granted $500  scholarships to 38 students in the Lively Welding Program and distributed multiple  grinders and Georgia boots.  The scholarships have been a healing salve and each donor, each recipient, and each person who applied for a scholarship was and is a valuable part of our grief journey. Selecting recipients was challenging and we always wished we could give more, could help more. Ultimately, the gift is knowing we do what we can and each person who received a scholarship, a grinder, or a new pair of boots, was one step closer to the future he or she set in motion.  In our hearts we are confident Wyatt would be pleased to help his fellow students in this way.  While we have dissolved t...
Post a Comment
Read more

I AM

A little step away from my personal grief journey and a turn toward the current times.  As of today, over 100,000 humans around the world have died due to the worldwide pandemic of Coronavirus or COVID-19. People are isolated. Borders around the globe have closed. Schools are closed. Airlines are grounded. Massive amounts of food sits rotting unable to be distributed. People are hoarding and supply chains are stressed. Businesses have closed. Governments scramble. Hospitals are maxed.  Care centers are incubators of death.  Medical personnel are at higher risk than ever yet we demand more and more from them.  The bodies of the dead are left to rot on the streets, held in morgues, or turned into mass graves. Funerals and memorials are in abeyance. There is neither time nor place for grieving. Isolation is wicked. Tensions can be high and panic pervasive.    Blame begins. Anger festers to hatred.  The fragile nature of our ex...
Post a Comment
Read more