Week 12: Distributing The Weight

Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.  ~Psalm 126:5

We are linked in our humanity the way the earth holds a tree, so that tree can hold a nest, so that nest can hold a bird, so that bird can drop a seed that will in time give birth to the next tree.

• Week 12: Distributing The Weight
• The Book of the soul - 52 paths to living what matters by Mark Nepo

Distributing The Weight

There are many sides of pain. There is the pain of not getting what you want, and the pain of losing someone close. There is the pain of worry and the pain of heartbreak. Sometimes to grow from our pain we need to take turns carrying the weight of our pain to help another with theirs? 

Recently, I listened to a story about gratitude and suffering. How life is filled with both. But when we choose gratitude, we must also hold space for gratitude in the suffering, for it is inevitable. It is when we emerge on the other side of sorrow where we  learn compassion, and sorrow is a great teacher.

I often think of happiness, as if it is owed to us, but then remember the joy in the mundane. To uncover happiness within the ordinary things we do daily helps us appreciate our lives. Usually once tragedy unravels our lives,  we wish we could return to the mundane.

Most of us emerge from sorrow available to distribute the weight of suffering for others. Recognizing the balancing act of gratitude and heartache, happiness and sorrow. Nobody said it would be easy, but as we mend the broken places, we will find beauty beneath the wreckage.