After another walk in our near perfect autumn weather, chatting with my friend, and stopping occasionally as one of us would point to a tree whose leaves have started turning color in preparation for its winter nap, I came home and got lost in a book. I find that so easy to do these days. I am so grateful that I can still see well enough to read. Fiction or nonfiction, it doesn’t matter. Each has something to teach me and something important for me to learn if I am to end my days in a spirit of acceptance and gratitude.
I have been struck recently, whether that is watching movies with my granddaughter, watching documentaries, or reading or talking with others, of just how beautiful and flawed we humans all are. Somewhere along the line we have been told that we should not have flaws and so we judge ourselves and each other. How sad.
And yet, it is still possible to live a happy and productive life filled with friendship, laughter, and love. Life, after all, is not the kind of experience or journey where traumas, challenges, and heartbreak are not supposed to happen, but one in which we are presented with the challenge to live well and live fully, not just in spite of difficulties, but because of them as everything brings with it a lesson. No one ever said that life would be easy, but happiness and a robust sense of humor is still possible. In fact, I suspect that finding that deep well of gratitude and love and humor is what the journey of faith is all about. When we ground ourselves on something or someone bigger than ourselves we give our life meaning, like Victor Frankl who survived the death camps of the Nazi’s during WWII by focusing on his memories of the love he’d shared with his wife. As a result he shaped a whole method of counseling based on the reality of love.
We all need help sometimes to weather the storms of life. For many of us, the tricky part lies in accepting our need for help. I have needed help several times during my lifetime and I will be forever grateful to 12 step meetings at a time when I felt as if everything was falling apart. Yet what I learned through those terrible years was that I had to let go of and unlearn much of what I thought was important if I was to emerge on the other side where acceptance, forgiveness, and love lived.
We are all flawed and always will be flawed, but that’s OK. No one ever said we should be perfect. Consequently, one of the most important things we can learn in life is when to ask for help and then accepting that help even when it comes in a different form than we anticipated. We need to remember that we are each worth fighting for and it is important to let glimmers of light in when we are in the midst of our despair. It won’t change the grief that follows a loved one’s death or the traumatic situations we find ourselves in, but learning to live and let live along the way will change how we respond.
Looking back over my life I wouldn’t change anything, even those periods of failure, grief, and struggles to emerge from deep clouds of despair, for I am a happier person and much easier to live with than when I was so judgmental and arrogant. If we make an effort to see the bright side of life along with the darker side we, discover that it isn’t so difficult if we reach out to others and recognize the world as this beautiful place we live in. Whatever life has to throw at us it actually is not that difficult to find the beauty, joy and fun in it.