As I reread this today a quote from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier comes to mind (my apologies to all you Star Wars fans out there!) Jim Kirk says, "Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" There is some truth to this, but we can't dwell in it. We have to learn from it, take a nugget out of it, maybe carry a scar to remind us of it every so often, and move on. But it is in the loss, the pain, the disappointment, the clawing our way back that we learn who we are. Without loss, you can never die to your old self; you can never find your true self.
So if the image you peel from the mirror doesn't look like you, doesn't seem familiar, maybe you've forgotten how you got here. And if you have forgotten, go back to the bookshelf and pull down the love letters, the photographs, the desperate notes, (the journals from years past) and remember what you learned. Remember how you got that scar, that gray hair, that realization that you are stronger than you thought, more vulnerable than you probably care to be, more empathetic than you ever dreamed you could be and wiser than you have ever been.
This poem by Kaitlin Curtice popped up in my reflection from Richard Rohr this morning and it immediately took me back to this discussion.
Don’t forget,
my love,
to live.
Don’t forget
to bury
your toes in sand
and leave the car keys
and laugh at oddities.
Don’t forget to marvel
and feel despair,
to sense danger
and run from it.
Don’t forget
to take chances,
to climb mountains
that no one believed
you could climb.
Don’t forget
to love yourself,
all of you,
from every season
and every place,
because you never know
when they will
come knocking for
a cup of coffee
and an overdue hug.
Don’t forget
that you are alive
right now
until you won’t be,
and even then,
don’t forget
how beautiful
it was to
call yourself Home.
As I reread this today a quote from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier comes to mind (my apologies to all you Star Wars fans out there!) Jim Kirk says, "Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" There is some truth to this, but we can't dwell in it. We have to learn from it, take a nugget out of it, maybe carry a scar to remind us of it every so often, and move on. But it is in the loss, the pain, the disappointment, the clawing our way back that we learn who we are. Without loss, you can never die to your old self; you can never find your true self.
So if the image you peel from the mirror doesn't look like you, doesn't seem familiar, maybe you've forgotten how you got here. And if you have forgotten, go back to the bookshelf and pull down the love letters, the photographs, the desperate notes, (the journals from years past) and remember what you learned. Remember how you got that scar, that gray hair, that realization that you are stronger than you thought, more vulnerable than you probably care to be, more empathetic than you ever dreamed you could be and wiser than you have ever been.