When I started the blog in 2007, I thought of it as a respite for people, a place to escape the travails of the outside world, a place for positive and affirming writing. Mostly, I think it is that, but I don’t wish to lose my own humanity and vulnerability just to be cheerful.
When Ed Gulley told me he had a brain tumor, it sent me off on a dark and deep place, Maria says she has never seen me like that before. I tell my writing students that a good writer is one who shows his or her vulnerability. To pretend to always be upbeat and in control is to lie, a cheat to my readers.
Like you, I do not live a perfect life and wouldn’t want one.
It’s the trouble and suffering us that defines us and tests us and challenges us. Almost every major religion preaches that suffering is God’s way of testing us, but that is no help to me.
There is nothing complicated or mysterious about suffering, I can’t see God pulling all those levers.
Suffering is as much a part of life as breathing or blinking. Some animals have perfect lives, I believe, because they feel suffering but don’t know what it is. We humans suffer and we do know what it is, we are delicate souls. We fear death and we also know what death is, unlike our dogs and cats and donkeys.
We are believed to be the only species on the earth that knows we will die, we just don’t know when.
I’m not sure why Ed’s news about his tumor affected me so deeply, I just don’t know. I’m in a humble state, drained of certainty.
I respect life and it’s decisions, we don’t get to choose who lives or dies, who gets sick or who doesn’t. Surely, the news made me feel vulnerable. And I am sharing that.
I have very strong feelings about not stealing the suffering of other people. Tell almost any dog lover that your dog just died, and you will often hear all about their dog who died, and at great length, even if it was years ago.
We can’t help but steal other people’s grief and loss, it somehow helps us with our own.
To me, that is stealing somebody’s sadness, rather than listening with empathy. I don’t wish to do it.
Ed’s tumor is about him, it is not about me.
It is not mine to take from him. I can be his friend, not his savior. It is not for me to be sad for him.
Yet I don’t have a cup to put this in, and uncharacteristically for me, I am confused and somewhat in shock. My silence unnerves Maria, it is not something she often sees or hears.
I have to write about it, of course. That is how I know what I think and feel.
I’ve been around, seen a lot of things, this one just knocked me down, and I am still down, I am still reacting to it, I don’t have my usual list of steps to take to climb out of a hole. I feel helpless about it all, and I am grieving something lost, even though nothing has yet been lost.
I do have a way of responding, and I will share that also.
When this happens, I go back into my center, my solid place.
I am overwhelmed by feelings, by distractions, fantasies, this disturbing desire to retreat into the certainties and pleasures of the world. I have no answers to my deepest questions, there is nothing for me in looking to the past, re-working my mistakes, feeling guilt or shame.
This is cleansing for me, humbling, a gift of perspective, and respect for life.
So I reach down inside of myself and look for the place that is solid, that is true, that is unharmed and unscarred, where I can say yes to the love of life, even when I feel unsure of it. This is a place deep within me that I have protected and hidden from the world, I suppose it is God in its own way.
I remember a pastor friend, Steve McLean, telling me that “God loves me, and God’s love is enough.” But I’m afraid it is not enough. If I can’t steal someone else’s suffering, neither can I give mine away, not even to God.
I am a pilgrim and wanderer, and I am not sure enough about God to rely on him to heal me or bring me back to the light. I must rely on my own life. I return to the solid place after every loss, every failure, every disappointment, every magnificent storm.
There, I am safe and very alone. I lift my glass to the sun, and pour some light. I ponder my riches.
I leave the dark cave, a ruby-colored bird with a million sparkles come sits on a crystal rim, and I pour some grace into my soul, so that you can hear me singing.
I mix the ingredients and make a toast and the world spins a bit, and I begin to turn my existence towards joy.
