Savior, May I Learn to Love Thee

I hope that we welcome and love all of God’s children, including those who might dress, look, speak, or just do things differently. It is not good to make others feel as though they are deficient. Let us lift those around us. Let us extend a welcoming hand. Let us bestow upon our brothers and sisters in the Church a special measure of humanity, compassion, and charity so that they feel, at long last, they have finally found home.

- Dieter Uchtdorf, from "You Are My Hands"

I have had a few friends of mine who are close to me feel the sting of nonacceptance. Others being made to feel "deficient" can happen from thoughtless people who say things in a way where the recipient can feel "other" and alienated. It hurts me to see them experience this. Some have unknowingly thrown away the blessings of the Gospel because of the unkindness of Church members, the same people who have made a promise to God to do for their brothers and sisters in the Gospel what Uchtdorf is lovingly encouraging us all -- religious or not -- to do. I have shed many tears for these people, especially those I have seen walk away from the LDS Church, feeling they have gained a reprieve from others in Church who are also struggling to become better people. But they end up losing the gifts of the the sacrament (whereby they can become unburdened of their sins, mistakes, and sorrows, and receive the gift of knowing spiritually that they can change and become better), the temple, and being ministered to, coming closer to and becoming more like God, which I believe is one of the deepest desires of the human heart, even if we don't call it "God."

I have the gift of empathy, but I had to suffer for that gift. I never ever felt accepted or wanted growing up and in my early 20s, whether within Church settings or without. I never walked away from the Church because I know it is the Savior's church, and that He loves those unkind and/or unwise souls as much as He does me. The deeper I've gone into its doctrines and covenants, the more I've felt and become. I didn't think life would get any better walking away from that, and I knew that as I attended Church and its other spiritually-centered events with the right motivations, I was following the Savior. I chose to look at it strictly as God's classroom, not social hour. Who I am in is in large part due to that decision to stick it when things were tough. My testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is my single greatest possession. You can't empirically observe it (outside), but you can experience (inside) it if you are willing to pay the price.

As for me now, I laugh to myself about most of the alienation I get from people, because I know its on them, and I can choose to be happy even if they are not. And I can occasionally choose to be a bit ornery if they need a wake-up call, not realizing that their speech patterns are dis-empowering and not love-centered ;P

Truckers

I am going to make a strange assertion here, and by the end of this reading, at least through my multi-faceted lens, you will have to admit that I am correct:

You can meet anyone, and I mean anyone, from any walk of life you can imagine, in the trucking industry.

Over the past year, after my bicycle tour through the southern Appalachian Mountains, I began a new career as a flatbed 18-wheeler truck-driver. It has been a remarkable experience. In North Dakota I saw the Milky Way for the first time in my life, and in New Mexico, nearing Texas, through tired eyes I saw it again so clearly that I simply could not find any constellations other than Ursa Major, so immense was the expanse of a thousand suns at midnight. The memory, even now, is within me as though each of those stars were seeds of wonder planted in this heart. I was able to see Mt. Rushmore, New River Gorge, Mt. Hood, Portland, OR, which changed my spiritual connection to nature forever, and all of California (From Oakland to Tehachapi to San Diego) in the flush of spring, where even the Mojave Desert rang with the silent songs of a billion desert-carpeted goldenblooms. I believe I passed through the only place in the world where one can observe Palm, Pine, gnarly Oak, gracefully protruding Black Pine, and Joshua Tree all within a 50 mile stretch. I visited Lake Powell, Bryce, Antelope, and Kolob Canyons, as well as Redrocks Ampitheatre (Near Denver, CO). I have rambled, making plant-sketches, swimming in lakes, and crawling over the hills like a child in the blessed countryside of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Kentucky. My faith in God was deepened as I got to experience Nauvoo, Kirtland, Lowell Observatory, and the Battle of Little Bighorn war-site. And for the first time, I experienced winter. Real winter. Toes-going-numb-within-five-seconds-of-stepping-outside winter. It is quite impossible to be anything but joyous when it is snowy and the sun (or street-lights) is setting it all a-glitter. Nothing coddles and soothes like the snow falling on the truck silently at night, dampening out all sound, so that when you awake to a Northern Wyoming morn, it seems you have awoke in heaven, so silent and white is the world about you. Among all this, there lies much deeper lessons. Not always to be found in the unbound heart of wilderness, but deep lessons buried in the souls of fellow travelers. Not always truckers, but I have had countless opportunities to the see the inner gold gleaming in the eyes of countless members of the human family. As often as they shared their stories -- as I am always eager to receive them -- as often as I work that mine I strike countless treasures of stories, that contain within them the essence, the heartpulse of what is to be human. I share just a few
An Indian man with a then-wild love life, who was as fun as a barrel of monkeys and made no qualms about his vices and was as generous as they come. He spoke of how I ought not to deny myself the privileges of such an abundant country, and how much it contrasted with where he came from.
A man of God who used his truck-training job working with student drivers to bring the light of Christ into the lives of all those he felt moved upon to bless.
A prior business owner who simply could not handle all the taxes and competition from larger corporations. He loved carpentry and lived a financially honest life.
A man just about my age, who looked more like he belonged in a coffee shop discussing obscure folk bands. He had a carefree blunt way about him.
Just recently, I had a trucker in his twenties give me a queer-eyed, flirting look as he passed by my truck in the fuel islands. . . I didn't see him again during my short stay at that truck stop.
A man who hauled diesel fuel. As he cleanly and professionally filled the fuel bays, not letting a drop stray onto the concrete as we chatted neighborly, he mentioned about the wars our country has waged in the past few decades. He mentioned that petrol is "the cost of freedom". Our 1st-world lifestyle indeed does depend on this fluid and we seem to go to great lengths, pushing the moral envelope, if you will, to maintain it.
A woman from Kodiak, Alaska who has worked many jobs, including drywall. She recently re-united with three of her sisters and vacationed in south Utah and north Arizona. I laughed when I learned that she, at just under a three-digit weight, can drink almost any man, however tough and seasoned, under the table!!
Looking back in my memory, four individuals from the company I currently work for, as well as another from Prime who love sustainable agriculture like myself, and are saving up through truck-driving for trips to foreign countries and purchasing land. Their locations range from New England to the upper peninsula of Michigan to Missouri.
A gentle man from Nicaragua, working for the same company as me, who left his native land because the agriculture was so poor, and because of pressures both environmental and political (inextricably tied, it would seem). His predicament struck me as so symbolic, so deep. We create a way of living that may deprive others of theirs, albeit in indirect and gradual ways. Here he is coming to our side because his side, at least in rural Nicaragua, has lost.
A man with a service dog who used to work as a chef. He has a culinary degree, and was a delight to talk to. His dog was very healthy, and as I supposed, he fed his dog a high-quality dog feed. We talked about many things, and felt a deep admiration for him.
A man who I spotted on his road-bicycle, riding circuits around the truck stop! I eventually caught him on one of his passes, and we talked for a short bit. He is from Serbia, and encouraged me to bicycle the some thirty miles of the New River Trail, just south of Max Meadows, Virginia. The New River is the oldest river in America. Like me, this man has taken advantage of the amazing opportunity that this job brings: You get within 5 to 15 miles of some of the greatest sights you can hope to see in this grand country. Without a bicycle in your sleeper berth, though, you'll never see them. And with a bicycle, you don't just see the sights, you feel the wind, smell the flowers, and hear the sounds of an unutterably-perfect world!
Finally, things come full circle. As I am planning on leaving this career to work the land and take part in environmental conservation, I meet a fellow entering into trucking who, just two years short of retirement, lost his job with an environmental company, too far into working-life and overqualified to find any pertinent work. How strange this life can be. . .
This next gentleman was not a truck-driver. However, this Yugoslavian bicycle enthusiast, whom I met on the train from Indiana to South Chicago, had something incredible to tell. He has experienced the awful state of eastern Europe thru wars in his country, once in 1991 and again near the turn of the century. He says, "when you travel to another country in Europe, you are a stranger, and people don't treat you the same. It takes a while for people to open up to you as a foreigner. If you come from a place outside of Europe, often-times the community where you now live will never accept you. But here in America, its amazing how close people are. People are so welcoming, and its so easy to talk to strangers, because, you know. . . Its America: everyone is from somewhere.

And there you have it. This is the nation in which we live. We have our challenges, and we have a disjointed, unstable, ever-shifting people, often without a strong sense of community. But we do have this un-nameable draw, this welcome feeling, where in some sense we are all wanderers, and that, strangely, is beautiful.

Intelligence

I was making a delivery to Chicagoland two weeks ago, and whilst waiting to talk to the lady in the shipping department, I became entangled in a playfully contentious conversation with the factory workers that went something like this:
"Hello. How are we supposed to figure out where to properly park?
"Don't come in here asking a bunch of questions, now. Everytime we answer a question, you have to pay us fifty bucks!
"Don't ask you no questions, you'll tell me no lies, eh?
(Moments later, I am asked a teasing question by one of the men)
With no expression, I look up and say to him, "You asked me a question, now you have to pay me fifty bucks"
"Hoho! That's some quick shit there. (To the others) You sure this guys a truck driver??"
Later that week. . . At my final drop-off in South Carolina, I was talking with the workers who were unloading a heavy metal  coil from the truck, using such words as "priority," and "transportation". I received a curious question from one of the guys and once I answered, he replied, unable to grasp the reality of the situation, "You are from South Carolina?!" and another one chimes in, "Everytime this guy opens his mouth, a big word comes out!"

Does anybody wonder now that I avoid introductions that, in the listener's mind, sums up to say "I'm a trucker from South Carolina" ?

I wonder about the idea of intelligence. At these memories, I think "Is intelligence not all too common? And isn't the commonest tale that of men of wasted potential?" and how I realized when I was 18 years old that blazing intelligence is found in all classes of men, from the wretched bum to the philanthropic millionaire. Sometimes, upon men learning of my background, I think of what was said of Christ, "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
Intelligence is common, but what I think is rare is wisdom. I like to mention to people that twelve types of intelligence have been theorized (including a specific type for athletic types, as well as music-lovers), only two of which are measured by an IQ test. And, since we like to measure the stature or intelligence of a man by his bank account, it should also be noted that there are eight kinds of capital, financial capital being only one of these. I think the highest use of intelligence is to take the gifts, talents, and eccentricities one has, and use them to the bettering of their fellows, despite all harangue, calumny, and peanut-gallery commentary. It is said that intelligence often divides one at first from their peers, feeling that others cannot or will not understand what they easily do. Later it yields the peaceful fruit of godliness, the man or woman accomplishing that which one's soul yearns for: To make his or her society all the sweeter for their having passed through it -- For is not that what we are here on earth to learn: to love one another? Though the intelligence given them may win nought but criticism and often violent persecution -- For which political or cultural leaders in their respective days would have given honor to William Tyndale, Hugh Lattimer, Joseph Smith, or John Muir?? -- few will dispute the results of their lives' works in the generations that follow. For instance, how many people who have been touched by the Bible, Book of Mormon, or the wilderness scripture of the Yosemite, Grand Canyon, or Mt. Ranier National Parks feel any disdain for these men? Though their going be hard in the beginning, congratulation awaits them at the finish, the feast at the Lord's table. So it is with us. A break from societal and economic norms is just what this community, this society, this world needs, if we are to continue on the upward ascension to the zenith of our potential. I close with words spoken by one of the wisest men I've heard:

I have seen a little of [this gold]. I know it is very malleable, but not as malleable as wit. A small grain may guild a great surface, but not as much as a grain of wisdom. Having read [Howitt's account of the Australian gold diggings], and partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the diggings still before me, I asked myself why I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles, — why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work that mine. Is not our native soil auriforous? Does not a stream from the golden mountains flow through our native valley? and has not this for more than geologic ages been bringing down the shining particles and forming the nuggets for us? Men rush to California and Australia as if the true gold were to be found in that direction; but that is to go to the very opposite extreme to where it lies. They go prospecting farther and farther away from the true lead, and are most unfortunate when they think themselves most successful.

- from Life Without Principle

Liberalis

Act One: Seeing Yourself in Others
I took a little run-away to Salt Lake City two days ago and got back yesterday. Being in the big city has always made me a bit nervous and stressed out, as I'd soon remember. But in seeking to re-invent a more-positive attitude, I thought, "Ah, a great opportunity to learn to love and appreciate people better". And so it was. After donating plasma, I seek to return to my campsite via rail. I lug my bicycle up the train's stairs, and my guess (and attempt at positivity) was soon proven correct that I just missed the first train for a reason. Enter Cody Supertramp: A wild-haired, bold-minded, brave-heart with a road bicycle of his own too! We begin naturally at talking about each others' bicycles. I learn that he has ridden/walked his bicycle all the way from New Jersey. A young man stifled by the suburbanite culture of the east just like myself! He tells me of his bicycle breaking in Kentucky and him walking all the way to central Tennesse. What I read of his account echoed sweetly of the reverent awe that I found myself in my early travels -- namely that people are good, that they want to help, and that they hold a great capacity to love. I share an excerpt of his song

Culture shocked. The kindness of people out here is unreal. My family out here feeds me, clothes me, gives me rides. A guy at work gave me 20 dollars when funds were low. Another bought me my favorite flavor of Rockstar. Another gave me half a pack of cigarettes when I was out and yet another bought me a pack today cause he could see I was having a bad day. Even the cop who caught me hopping the train, let me off with a warning and thanked me for my cooperation. I love it here, finally surrounded by people who are as compassionate as I. I've lived here for 4 months, and feel more at home than 28 years in Jersey.

Cody found what was there all along, the road just brings it out of us, and out of others. He said essentially that by wandering, he found what he needed. He now knows a lot more of what he wants to do in life. Not all who are drifters are running away from something lesser. Some of us are running to something greater. 

Act Two: And Just What Do You Want?
Next morning, I wake up and descend the hill while my sleeping bag and materials dry. I didn't walk but three minutes but I see a school bus parked just outside the trail-head parking lot. I immediately realize what kind of person this bus belongs to. I see steam coming out of a vent fashioned into the roof. I see the bus's original district faded on the side. And what caught my heart the most: A "Little Tikes" brand step stool, fashioned to look like an oak tree. Children! Oh, how beautiful!! I come back an hour later and I see A man and three children outside the bus. I call to him, "Hello! I think the way you live is beautiful". He introduces himself as Charles Wallace, and I soon find out that his beautiful life was shared between him and his wife, and his seven children. . . and his two large dogs! We share spiritual conversations, iPod pictures, a bowl of chili, travelogues, how Christ said we should become like little children -- see life the way they see it -- and talking of finding that woman that I'll cherish through life and eternity. He says that his vision became impaired in one eye and he was not able to work for a year. Eventually they realized they were just bemoaning their misfortune and not living. I so admired their dedication to God, and their great children. He suggested a radical change in my life, and while I felt I was where I was supposed to be, I defintely understood the kind of woman I wanted to share my life with after that point. 

Act Three: Nirvana
Woke up before sunrise, wanted to wait until it was warmer. Plunged back inside, completely enveloped and sheltered. I was comforted by the light passing through my sleeping bag, bringing out the red and orange tones in my skin. Eventually poked my head out, it was mid morning and I was surrounded by sparkling white, I laid there on my back looking at the sky, the winter branches spread across big blue. If I live to be a thousand I should never forget those branches, which stood bravely overhead and with beautiful peace, mirroring my mood at that precise moment. But it was more than peace, it was freedom. It was a peace detached from anything and everything. I thought that maybe it was time to go home, even if just for a little while. 

--------------------

And as for Mr. Wallace, you can only guess what the bus'es faded letters read: 

Liberty School District 

Wild Inheritance

Instincts long dead became a live again. The domesticated generations fell from him. In vague ways he remembered back to the the youth of the breed, to the time where the wild dogs ranged in packs though the primeval forest, killing their meat as they ran it down. . . In this manner had fought forgotten ancestors. They quickened the old life within him and the tricks they stamped into the heredity of the breed were his tricks. They came to him without effort or discovery, as though they had been his always. And when, on still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. 

- Jack London, The Call of The Wild

(From October 15th) . . . Cooped up for two days, mostly inside. Feeling myself in a hibernation-like state where desire for food is faint and unrewarding, my body closed up in a patient waiting whilst my soul openly suffers. My sleep schedule disorients, I could sleep all the time or little. It would seem to make no difference. I step outside, not for but a moment. I do it with heart, with intent. I ride out in the afternoon sun past landfill mounds, truck stops, and railroad tracks. I pause and begin my re-connection. Bare feet in deep grass. No thoughts, no inward dialogue. Resonant peace flowing within, mirroring the landscape without. Midwestern winds rippled along tassels of marsh grass much like dancing water in a steady mountain stream, and the slow river sat, shining, placid. Bold Michigan winds poured through a willow tree opposite the marsh, not caring how or why the wind moved it, but bravely being and holding my affectionate gaze. Felt my body changing. Reawakening now that I was back among the living, the breathing, the being. . .

Not as stark as this, but there is these two existences, distinguishable always. As I re-connect with Nature, where I put my feet on raw earth, a kind of spiritual resonance begins to sing again -- as it always has with each return to what is good and sensible -- A genetic agreement with the experiences of ancestors, long passed, though alive still. These two beings: The life of recent man, and the life which bears the essence of ancient, or older, man. One carries an inconspicuous dissonance, the other a warm resonance, familiar and edifying. True, we often find ourselves in the life that is carved out for us, but sometimes fail to recognize the identity given us of our fore-bears. Be still, and find it instantly. Or, coming back (returning home) from an anesthetized and fallow reality, patience and persistence in wildness will bring it back ever-so-steadily, much as Buck in London's tale experienced. Harking back to older ways of living, thinking, exercising and eating bring us back to the vitality and hardiness that our ancestors enjoyed, even those a few generations back. I myself have Eastern European ancestors that were living a subsistence agrarian lifestyle as late as 1880, so the reflection in the pool is undisturbed, clear, not as muddied by the times of the Industrial Age as many of my peers. I have not forgotten the tricks and feelings they understood. Through a mindful state, it has been relatively easy for me to "remember back" and allow "domesticated generations," with their overemphasis on ease and capital, and an unfortunate disjointed-ness to fall away. Those who would teach us our culture and "our place," may help us become who we will be, but can never take into account who we once were. Thus cultural training -- or conditioning -- must always be viewed with cautious discernment, favoring our temporal (ancestors) and spiritual (The Great Spirit, the Creator) heritage as a moral point of departure and foundation: A wild inheritance. As I reconnect with the earth, plunging into soil, I feel my hands are their hands. Feeling the beauty of nature unimproved, my heart, their heart. My eyes, their eyes. I see what they saw: A thousand gifts, all pointing to God, from whom all flow: sight, smell, fruit, flower, animal, vegetable, earth, river, sky. 

Temperance

You are as a tiny flower in desert autumn
Late blooms in the warm coolness, beautiful and so perfect,
Formed by God -- petal and pistil
Yet. . . I cannot quite pluck it up and keep as my own
It gives inspiration, a tie to God, and I return it the gift
Of breath, gratitude.

Wasatch Valley, Utah

A Passion

"To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, to come closer together, to find each other, and to feel: That is the purpose of life" - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

If there's one thing I would have to stick to my guns on, if all else was taken from me spiritually, would be that God is totally aware of me and cares deeply for me, and also this: 

Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

For on this hangs the faith of all men. We must want. Not in the way an animal wants, wandering to and fro seeking the next source of sustenance, driven by the will to survive. No, we must desire with great intensity things that give life and light, uplifted by the will to live. Is it remarkable that the mere mental processes of desiring beauty, of visual grandeur and of calm simplicity, feeds us in and of itself? It is something that has haunted mankind as a whole since creation, a seed that we carry with us all, a constant companion. We call it passion! Once it begins to sprout, we must either grow with it, or it overtakes us, for its potential is that of a mighty tree. Some men have never been happy with merely dreaming. Some women have never been content with merely serving. I believe that the more we allow passion to take root in our spiritual soil, and bravely scale its mighty branches, the higher heights we can attain. Sometimes I feel it over-taking me. It makes madmen of all who embrace its awful design. You will forever be "unreasonable," "freaskish," "obsessed," and "a dreamer". It is never done with you, only you can be done with it. I am so grateful that as a  tender boy of eighteen years, I took to the road and wandered its strange path. Though it was a short three weeks, it in a way led to a renunciation of the world, such that I will never again take the easy way, the comfortable life. I have no choice now but to follow my passions. The seed of mad wonder has already taken root in me. I must either entwine my soul to it or be destroyed by it. No matter that others may not understand or see me as dangerous. We are all the captains of our own ship, possessed with our view of the sky, as only a natural result of where God has put us. Excepting the north star (for those of appropriate hemisphere), of course others shall insist on different passage, for the position of the stars in their sky differ from those of your own!! The sky read marvelous and terrible things for a man named Prince Siddhartha. A prophecy given of him, early in his childhood, declared that he would either become king, or would become a spiritual leader. He would witness 4 signs of suffering in this world: An old man, a sick man, a dead man, and an ascetic. For so much of his life, clouds were covered over his sterile and comfortable existence. His father-king had done everything he could to make his life excellent and free from suffering, even the witnessing of suffering, so much so that when Siddhartha, at the age of twenty-nine, saw an old man, decreped man, he was overcome with grief and shock. He had never seen genuine pain before. Once the glorious stars, Avalokitsevara's ten-wondered universe of dark and diamonds, came to his view through the clouds, burning in his eyes, a grand passion grabbed his bosom, and carried him far away, to a new life -- a condescension to the sufferings and pains of man. Through his new life as a self-deprived vagrant, he eventually became enlightened. He is now known as the Buddha (there were many before him, and many after him, but to his people, none were greater). His suffering during his spiritual journey brought him to a way to be freed from and rise above it. I will talk more on that later. But the following is a letter I sent a dear friend:

I've been doing a lot of thinking and reading today, and things have been so peaceful. I think of John Muir, Vincent Van Gogh, Neal Cassidy, or Everett Reuss, about how they had SO MUCH PASSION and many stories of how it consumed them. I feel a strong kinship with their madness. Everett Reuss gave 3 years of his life to the painted desert -- experiencing places such as Monument Valley, Shiprock, Zion National Park, and hole-in-the-rock, and associating with the Utes and Navajos -- and finally, the desert took him at the tender age of twenty. Reading his letters . . . about what he lived make my soul and body burn, like my passion for life is too big and I don't know what to do with all of it, and it hurts a little, like being love-sick. It's very hard to describe accurately.

I thought about that morning that was mine, passing swamps and fields in the early light. 'Twas a business trip. At one point, we crossed a vein of swamp water that fed the estuaries further inland, and trees marked where the river-bend and fields of wild growth, teeming in the fresh morning sun, merged together. It called to me, and there were times when we passed fields to the right, grasses exploding in light as if covered in a tender dusting of morning frost. What I felt as the light danced between trees that raced along my eyes led me to wonder, "do the other people in this car feel what I'm feeling?! Does it make them marvel, does it fill their body with vision, does it set a tingle to their spine and an ember to their hearts???"
The sun setting fields in white majesty, glorying God and singing purest hymns (for who can find a more complete song than grain heads caressing one another in the wind?), the swamp trees decked in moss so richly, wisely, twisting their way up to heaven, caught in yellow morning light. I see so much beauty and kindness and joy and sadness that at times it is too much to bear and I must temper my feelings as to not be overwhelmed or to not unsettle my fellows, unable to truly share with them how it affects me so (Everett Reuss said that, above all, this was his greatest torture. His isolation in his love-affair with this grand world was more acute than mine). . . And so, I want to shout, but must whisper most times, or keep quiet, it smoldering inside all the while.
I now turn to an experience I had during a trip to upstate SC. I caught a ride with a woman and her friend. Their lives bore no resemblance to the comfortable ones of their peers. The one I had originally contacted, Suzie, holds a Masters in Sustainable Communities, has traveled far over this small planet, and has compassion for all living things. Suzie is a self-titled misanthrope. She finds it hard to believe in humanity. For her too, life seems too much to take in at times. She bemoaned her HSP and how it makes it self-imposed isolation and acute suffering all-too-easy. I told her that she is able to experience life on a deeper level than most. That great suffering brings great love. It makes one more human, I said! "Think of the great people of history, who lived such lives of pain and sorrow. Look at how much love they had. Look how much they changed their world forever! Think even of Jesus Christ. It is said that he suffered the pains of all men and women. His ability to feel was so great. He was the most human human to ever walk this world"
Pleasure and pain, love and grief are so divinely designed, so intimately intertwined. Each are force-pairs. We must not be afraid to feel, lest we forfeit the purpose of life.