Monday, May 04, 2015

30 Days - Day 21

The resilience of the human spirit is amazing. I was struck by this poem the other day and resolved to practise its principles:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
- Rumi -

It seems to me I've experienced so much pain, loss, sorrow, injury, fire, flood, grief and malice recently. I was talking to the facilitator of an event where I was asked to be the after dinner speaker. I told her I'd been through so much hell in the last four months I had nothing inspirational to offer anyone, so please find someone else.

"Oh," she said,"You have everything to offer. You got through it all. How did you do that?"

I agreed to speak.

13 comments:

  1. So happy for you, WWW, that you "agreed to speak". I don't want to sound like Churchill but do commend spirit in the face of adversity.

    With the poem I can not agree. I will "meet malice at the door" but most certainly not let it in. I once knocked at a door (about six years ago) and malice let me in and met me. I do not believe in Karma but will make an exception for this woman and her heartlessness. I hope she'll cut her fingers on everything she took from me. Nothing of value to her, of so much (emotional) value to me. I am not vengeful otherwise I'd torched her in the intervening years. As it is, when the wound doesn't bleed any longer the scar serves as an unwelcome reminder.

    With you in my heart, not least because despite the little I know of you, I believe you hurt on a scale I have been spared.

    Hug,
    U

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  2. Ah Ursula, so glad you could comment as others are unable, some sort of glitch in the capcha and I tried to fix or ameliorate to no avail :(

    I hear you on letting Malice in and around the dwelling but I think it can be completely inadvertent when trust is in place and it wears the disguise of love. I still continue to be amazed at my stupidity in being taken as if from left field. By many. BUT I've learned a lot. This time. I will not trust so easily again.
    Sorry to hear about your troubles and how you were taken advantage of. Trust as well I expect.
    XO
    WWW

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  3. Like Ursula, I disagree that you should welcome "the dark thought, the shame, the malice", or sorrows that empty your house. As soon as you recognise them for what they are, shoo them away fast. Assuming, as you say, they don't wear the disguise of love.

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  4. The capcha this time was numbers rather than pictures, which wasn't a problem.

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  5. Thanks Nick, I tweaked around with it. I must admit I like the laughing at malice part, only when I recognise it, most times I don't.
    XO
    WWW

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  6. I wonder how we get through it. We're pretty brave. If we are lucky, a few people care at a deep level. It's not malice but indifference that hurts the worst.

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  7. We live in difficult times in a world full of trouble, strife and disaster, trying to carry the woes and worries of the whole world in my hands or on my own shoulders is impossible. It does not mean I am uncaring or cannot empathise with your suffering & difficulties of the past months.

    My way to deal when situations such as yours hit home, it is to find just one person in need and help them, in what way I can, to have a better life.

    Time to remember Deepak Chopra

    “What other people think of you is not your business. If you start to make that business your business, you will be offended for the rest of your life.”

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  8. Hattie:
    Yes, indifference is the very worst, I totally agree. I've known people who are pillars of the community helping people in Africa while indifferent to the agony on their own doorsteps.
    give me malice any day!

    XO
    WWW

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  9. Yes GM and it is amazing how many are out there needing a leg up or a cheery word.

    I am focussing on so much good right now and just dealing with what's in front of my hands.

    XO
    WWW

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  10. I hope reading Rumi felt as if someone did understand you and you were less isolated that you had been feeling. A long-gone poet is not an exact stand-in for a friend who has known you through the decades, I understand. Still, to know that your emotions have been felt by another human, no matter how many centuries and cultures removed from your own, settles the breathing a bit, doesn't it?

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  11. Linda:
    I felt that recognition when I read those words. Every experience needs a welcome, good, bad or indifferent. I'll be better prepared the next time, I hope!
    XO
    WWW

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