O...

"It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have begun our real journey.

The mind that is not baffled is not employed.

The impeded stream is the one that sings."

— Wendell Berry

Comments

[Heather]

Hang in there, Sweetie. I promise it gets better.

[matt]

We're still keepin' ya in our thoughts, mister!

[Jennifer Jeffrey]

"... the one that sings." I love that evocation of hope and joy.

I'm going to print it out and stick it on my mirror.

Hugs to you.

[Anita]

I love this idea.

And you have no idea how excited I was to see you pop up in my RSS reader :)

[Brian]

I'm just some random guy who reads your blog, but this quote echoes a lot of my existential struggling these days, too. Thank you for posting it. I'm glad to have read it.

I remember (but only well enough to paraphrase) Pema Chodron, a Buddhist nun, saying that one of the major watersheds of the spiritual path is the change of heart from viewing difficult and painful situations as things to be fought, resisted, and avoided to, instead, welcoming them into our lives as our greatest teachers.

I have no idea what you're going through, so it may seem rather glib of me to post stuff here like easy platitudes, but that's always been of use to me. When things suck bad enough that I can't actually bring myself to that frame of mind, it's still helped me to keep it as an aspiration.

Best wishes.

[barbara]

I'm sure I was more excited than Anita when I saw you pop up on my reader. :) Hope you are doing well.

Yesterday I bought my first Pema Chodron book so it was interesting to see her quoted in a comment on your blog.

[Tea]

I'm sure I was more excited than Barbara, to see a new post in my RSS. Every day, as I note the empty spot next to IPOS, I've thought of you and hoped you were finding the strength to muddle through. Once, during a particularly rough chapter, I pinned a Hemmingway quote up by my desk: "Live breaks us all, but some of us grow stronger in the broken places.”

Thanks for sharing the poem (I too am trying to grapple with the "real work"), and for the sign of life. Hang in there, we're rooting for you.

[Hande]

You are back!(?) Lovely poem. Good thing you see the beauty of it.

[rachel]

I'm sure I was more excited than Tea, (well, maybe as excited, I imagine there's no much better than Tea excitement) to see you writing again. It was great to meet you at the slide luck show, and now to see this is just wonderful. Yay!