Where have I been? I am not entirely sure....underground? within? digging? sprouting? I don't know really. I thought this photo might explain it better than my words ever could. My co-teacher discovered this incredible corn plant growing from a wad of clay made by one of our five year old students and kept moist for future use. Our student had employed an ear of indian corn to make impressions in the earthy mound. Some of the kernals obviously found their way into the creation and this beatiful gift was the unexpected result. When we first saw it we both knelt in front of it, awed by the determination of life. This image became a sort of metaphor for my life right now. I feel like freshly kneaded and tilled earth. I don't know what seeds have been planted by the larger hand of life. Yet I seem to trust the determination of life within me, like those seeds of corn embedded in clay. There is a resilience and tendency toward growth that simply won't be ignored. Perhaps someday I will be able to see the plants and even eat the fruits of my souls tenacity.
Grief is defined as a deep or intense sorrow. I have been thinking a lot about grief, about it's wide and sticky reach, about the watery quality of it's absorption and the agonizing effort of swimming to shore. Intense sorrow happens. It is a part of life. Yet we press against it. We try to eradicate it. How? We encapsulate our grief in a story, thus effectively removing us from the immediacy of the pain. The mind promises salvation and begins to tell a story, over and over and over. We listen to the inner ramblings, the constant diatribe, the neurotic attempt to avoid the experience. When someone is hurting we listen to their story, we talk about it, we recount our own story, but we certainly don't jump in the waters of sadness, instead we sit on the bank of our familiar longing. Once, when I was floundering in deep grief, my youngest brother knelt next to me and held me for over an hour. He didn't speak. He didn't commiserate. He just jumped in the
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