We are not tempted to feel sorry for you but to wish that your life situation might tighten its screws on you and force you to let what resides in you come out, might begin that more rigorous examination that is not satisfied with chatter and witticism.
—Soren Kierkegaard
During such destabilizing moments, when our mettle is tested, we must reassess… everything. It takes discipline and focus to recover our balance.
Poetry, I find helps — reading and writing it. Below, is a poem that I wrote after such an inner disturbance.
Visceral
The watering holes are contaminated
animals stagger, wounded and wounding
strangling fierce and bewildered keening -
there is word of a stranger in the village
spreading like lengthening shadows
spilling into once safe, sunlit spaces
splotchy-blotchy, blemishing news
as expected as a natural disaster
all is wet with fear of the unknown
sky and earth quake and thunder
survival simplified to a difficult equation
under the dictate: overcome or perish
transcendence has become a necessity
no time for tears or breathless incredulity
time to summon powers once bragged of
submit to be tested as man and superman.
Animals stagger, shadows lengthen, no time for tears - "visceral" is right.
The infidelity in the title of this post opens another portal for the reader.
I've been catching up with your Twitter posts as well as Hive, and no, I will never get "caught up," as I've been following the 50-word short story series of @felt.buzz this morning as well. And requests for book reivews keep flowing into my Twitter inbox. I'm ever wary of the surveillance bots tallying Impressions and Engagements, ready to nail me for "violating" Friends and Family policy about reviews. Who better to review a book than a reader who "engages" with the author? Eh. In another matter, I've been trying to find a good place to call attention to this message you posted at Twitter - how it speaks to me! - every day I pray the Lord's Prayer, esepcially "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us," knowing I have offended, trespassed, or neglected to do good things (sins of "omission" can be worse than sins "commission").
Forgive, even when you have the power to retaliate
There is a whole blog post in there, but I'm not ready to tackle it today. Suffice to say, Bruce's stories touch on this. Especially the sister thread, Margot vs Chloe, and Humpbuckle Tales 9: The Psychiatrist (blue bicycle) -
Again, I #Love your Twitter post:
'Whoever forgives while he has the power to take revenge is forgiven in turn by God when he deserves punishment.'"
― Sulami (d. 1021 CE), Kitab al-Futuwwah, trans./ed. Tosun Bayrak
Short on words today, my friend, but read yours and am grateful it has you meditating on forgiveness. I'm working on it, too. More Love, less ego...
More Love, less ego...
We are a work in progress.
Oof, tell me about. Every day, I forget what I learned the previous day...
You too???? FOR REAL...????
I feel like Sisyphus with the boulder, taking all day every day to get it to the top, only to have it roll down and start all over again the next day. Why can't I remember, internalize, be transformed, by all those Lessons Hard Learned?
Yes, for real :/ It takes a lifetime, if we're lucky, I tell myself. Gotta keep on failing better...
LOL!