July 18 2023

Suffering and wonder — these two paths are what have invoked almost all (possibly all) of the change in my flickering 40 years. Pain and love. Trial and awe.

Neither are necessarily easy, maybe because both require acceptance and letting go.

Loving and being loved are difficult in their incompleteness. I love you, I want to love, and I don’t know how. I’m tapping into this love from a higher power, transferring it from my body to yours, and I’m limited. I’m scared and I’m scarred and my self-protection flares up without my knowing. Let go, little boy! Open your body and heart and soul and love what you can love and let it keep expanding. But what about if and when I get hurt? Uh huh. Yes. Risk is absolutely necessary, and can you trust that you’ll be held?

Suffering, same story. It goes against my nature to sit in the ashes, to allow the pain, to resist trying to fix it because you can’t fix it — we are not in control.

Open your hands, little boy, little girl. Unclench your fists and let the scars in your palms heal from where your fingernails dug in deep. Listen to suffering. Listen to love. Go slowly, walk humbly, be gracious.