“There are very few lives that just move smoothly from beginning to end. They have to be refined.” Archbishop Desmond Tutu, from The Book of Joy.
Have you ever thought about life that way? Most of us resist the difficult periods of life. The times when things are hard, when we squirm and struggle, when we wish it was different. Sometimes the struggle is about grief, illness, old age, loss, despair, loneliness. Sometimes the struggle is in the daily frustrations with other people and in trying to find a bit of comfort and ease in the world.
How much different our perspective might be if we realized that we are here, in our humanness, to be refined…to grow in understanding…to expand our perspective…to learn how to see the Divine is every living being, in every living thing.
This perspective calls us to pause in the struggle and ask: what about this can I use to grow? What is this calling me to understand? How is it calling me to love? What would it look like from their shoes?
I don’t want the same year, same struggles lived over and over again. I want a refined life…one in which I work toward releasing impurities…to be free from judgement, hate, small mindedness, me first, only my way, negativity, gossip, guilt, blame, and resentment. That’s what refined means….to be free from impurities. I want to use my life experiences, struggles and all, to free myself from anything that prevents me from seeing the Divine in everyone and in everything.
Let me stand on the bumpy road, let me release one thing and then another until all that’s left is the joy I feel in the midst of this one incredible life.
Much love always
Paula
