You're Flying to the Ground!
Is it ok to not feel ok?
I often reflect on the "beatitudes" from Luke 6:20–22 “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil."
These verses are in fascinating opposition to the world of positive psychology, manifestation and personal empowerment. While no one is wrong to assert that it feels "good" to be rich, full, laughing, loved and included, I just wonder if it makes sense to always assume that it is "better" to be all these things.
The other night I was watching the final episode of a series that was really touching, it connected me with a deep well of grief that hadn't been present in a while and I had what is commonly referred to as a "good cry." So culturally, most everyone can acknowledge that there is something valuable about these painful moments.
And even if we don't think they are valuable, don't want them here and wish we could live without them, I haven't found a person who actually can. So at the very least, I feel like for the time being, this system of contrast is the one that we have available for this life. So, if we are stuck in a game where pleasure cannot exist without pain, where inclusion only exists with exclusion and life is inevitably met by death, at least can we come into radical acknowledgement that it is so and release the never ending call of culture to somehow eradicate the existence of contrast?
I happen to dislike winter, and somehow the only state that would recognize my marriage legally at the time so that I could get health insurance for my partner and have a baby and have both of us legal parents was Massachusetts (a very wintry place). So, we made the journey here. Then after many years of benefiting from those resources, we got divorced and made the legal agreement to stay within 30 minutes of one another until our kiddo was 18. So, if I want to parent, I am signing up for winter. And because I want to parent, I have decided to accept that winter is a part of that. I don't have to like winter, but I can let go of trying to make winter go away.
And so far as I can tell, pain and loss are unavoidable parts of this life, and so everyday when I am offered that option of staying in life or not, I accept/acknowledge that so far, until something changes, I am choosing to have pain and loss alongside joy and life.
Rumi describes this beautifully in his poem The Guesthouse and so does my other favorite poet, ALOK in this post about radical inclusion: "so fear knocks, I say, hey fear, let me accessorize you, I dress up fear, I put it in a really cute heel, I walk outside with fear as my best friend, it's there, I greet it, the reason fear often becomes the author of our lives is because we are constantly banishing it, but when we actually include it, radical inclusion means looking at every emotion and saying thank you, so both my pride and my shame, thanks for being here, both my hatred and my love, great, you all have something to say here and once we begin to incorporate even all the things that we judge in other people, because these are often indications of things we are unresolved in ourselves, once I began to radically include all parts of myself then fear no longer has a stranglehold on me because fear is one voice among many voices, so when I'm going outside and fear says, 'you're going to get attacked!', now magnificence, another voice that is louder because I have nurtured and exercised it says, 'or someone's going to say great shoes!'"
