Like most people with any humanity at all, I have been caught up in the ripple of horror, grief, fear and utter disgust which swept the world in the week leading up to and including Easter 2016, which revealed once again the depravity of which humanity at its worst is capable.
At a personal level, too, life has been tough: not for me, but for close family and friends. We spent the last days of Lent waiting for death to release a suffering family member. A close friend fell, cracked bones, and is in hospital. Other friends have had traumatic issues to deal with.
There has been no shortage of life crucifying us, both collectively and personally.
How do we cope with all this? My response to personal and collective pain has always been to turn to the natural world which at present is full of the beautiful vibrancy of fresh daffodils – and to poetry, which never fails to offer consolation. I was looking through my archive of quotes and found this one, which I found helpful to read today. I hope you do too…
. “ There is an ancient Aztec Indian prayer that reflects on the preciousness of life and the fleetingness of it. As the Aztecs thank the Creator for their life and breath, they acknowledge that they are only on loan to each other for a short while, and just like the drawings that they have made in crystalline obsidian fade, so, too, will their life quickly be gone.
‘Oh, only for so short a while you have loaned us
to each other, because we take form in your act
of drawing us.
And we take life in your painting us,
And we breathe in your singing us.
But only for so short a while have you loaned us
to each other.’ ”
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(from p55, PRAYING OUR GOODBYES The Spirituality of Change by Joyce Rupp 1988)
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350 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2016
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