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Journal
Entry September 19, 2003 I am in the eye of a hurricane.
I realized that today as I was driving home and contemplating upon the
fact that I hadn’t written any sort of journal entry yesterday and today
wasn’t looking so good either. It
was then that it hit me. I am in
the eye of a hurricane, the calm of the storm, one of those rare moments in your
life when things actually are going well and everything seems right. Unfortunately those moments make for bad
storytelling. That’s okay though.
I’m grateful to have this (I’m sure, brief) moment of peace.
Suffering is a blessing, something to make you grow stronger.
Okay. But it wasn’t long
before I started looking up and pleading, just a short little break!
Just a small five minute time-out before I continue with all this
strengthening. My prayers were
answered. So, what to do?
Well, apparently an epidemic has swept through this city of ours in which
all the accelerator peddles have magically disappeared from every car except
mine so I had plenty of time to think as I attempted to get from one place to
another. This is what I came up
with. What exactly is suffering?
It’s a cruel, heartless thing that occurs solely to torture human
beings. Right?
Well, a former president of my church calls suffering “school of
experience” and encourages everyone to stop complaining about suffering
because it is necessary for our growth. Okay.
To borrow something from Rumi:
I
saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow
and called out, “It tastes sweet,
does it not?”
“You’ve caught me,” grief answered, “and
you’ve ruined my business.
How can I
sell sorrow, when you know it’s a blessing? This can easily be applied to suffering. Let’s suppose a hurricane has hit your house,
and now the eye has moved in. It’s
relatively calm so you decide to go out and survey the damage.
Now, since I am a Meteorology student, I cannot say that without adding a
warning to not actually do that since it is not particularly safe.
But, for now, let’s pretend it is safe, and you go outside to get an
idea of what’s left standing and what’s not.
Of course, you’ll have to resurvey everything once the storm has
completely moved through, but, for now, you just want a general idea.
So it was with me. I decided
to take this time to think about all the things I’d learn through this last
“bout” of suffering. Well, the first blessing I was able to see right off the bat was that
suffering is directly linked, at least for me, to writing.
This makes sense, especially if you look at poetry throughout the years.
Poetry, in one form or other, is a song of suffering of some sort,
whether it be external or, more commonly, internal.
Fiction is one style of writing where suffering can really be seen (and
by fiction, I’m including movies, which are basically fiction on a screen).
Can you think of any book or movie that is not driven by some sort of
suffering and problems? In fact, conflict, climax, and resolution are the main
ingredients to good fiction. In my
experience, fiction is like watching the obviously mentally unstable reporter in
the middle of the hurricane. When
the hurricane is blowing, and the reporter and cameraman have to nail their feet
to the ground is order to keep from blowing away like Dorothy, everybody is
glued to their television set, muttering ohs and ahs and even laughing at the
poor person. It’s entertainment!
However, when this same reporter comes on the TV during a relatively calm
period, when he’s able to actually stand up straight, nobody pays as much
attention. Nobody cares, because
there’s nothing exciting happening. There’s
no conflict.
Would you see a movie where everyone was smiling and happy at the
beginning, middle, and end? That
wouldn’t be much of a story, would it?
So, there you go. Another
blessing. Without suffering, we might not have had any sort of books or
movies, and we would have been forced to do more productive things with our time
like work. Shiver. I might as well continue on with my hurricane
analogies since I’ve gotten pretty good at it now.
Once upon a time, we used to have a row of pine trees that we raised from
the time they were little sprouts on the side of our lawn as a property
boundary. They had just grown above
our heads a hurricane decided it had nothing better to do than hit us.
It wasn’t a large hurricane, wind wise, but it was rain wise.
It didn’t take long before a mini Colorado River formed on the side of
our house, rushing down the back and taking our beloved pine trees with it. Now, I never thought you could actually mourn the loss of a
plant, but I all but put little tombstones beside the holes where they once
stood. The point is, after
something happens, things change. Our
land had changed, and, all a sudden, there was a giant “empty space” where
the trees once stood that was unnerving. When
we go through suffering, or trials, or problems, whichever you’d like to call
it, it’s all the same, we change. It
might not be a moon changing from its orbit change, but it’s a change
nonetheless. So, I thought about
myself. I can honestly say that I
am different from the person I was only two days ago. What happened? Well,
for me, it was more of a spiritual growth that made me see and realize things a
little clearer. Maybe that’s why
things seem so calm. I also felt as
though I had very little knowledge and started studying the masters in various
subjects, including religion. I
figured if I wanted to gain knowledge, they were the best sources to start with.
That made me feel better too. The point is, while we may not like to admit
it, suffering is to our advantage. Of
course, it’s a lot easier to say this when you’re not actually suffering. But, the outcome can be either positive or negative.
The trick is learning how to turn it into a positive.
For example, where the beloved pine trees once grew, we now have a fig
tree that actually produced a fig. You
may laugh, but this is a major accomplishment for a baby fig tree!
Who knows, maybe the pine trees fertilized the ground just right so it
could grow. So, the next time
someone asks you, how can you handle of the problems you have, just answer,
I’m being fertilized so I can produce a fig.
They might try and have you committed, but oh well. © EXCEL
What do you want to do?
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