To Sorrow is To Live

I don't know where you live, but here in the midwest, the weather is stunning.

The leaves are turning extraordinary shades of abundant red, orange and yellow.  The temperature is mild and the sun, at least for the past several days has been shining.

So, on my way to the gas station and the grocery store this morning, I was smiling in gratitude. 

I needed to.  I'd been moping a bit.  Care taking for my two daughters who have been down for the count with the flu and now feeling badly that my husband has caught the bug. 

Just as I rounded the bend, out of the blue, a friend sent a text to tell me that she was grateful for the spirit of joy I bring to her life.  I was astounded and probably looked like a dip shit with big tears in my eyes at the gas pump.  We exchanged a few messages; one in which, I lamented about how sometimes life isn't fair and that certain things don't add up.

That's when she sent me this:

"Joyfully participate in the sorrow of living," Buddha.

And then, a moment later, this popped up in my in-box.

As I was throwing ingredients into the grocery cart to make chicken noodle soup, apple crisp and pumpkin muffins, I started throwing it around in my head.  It makes sense.  There are so many attachments, desires, cravings, fears that we walk around harboring.  Some of them will be actualized and some of them will not.

I suppose, our job is not to wallow in the parts of us that don't work out the way that we yearn, but rather to learn to live with the outcome, the season, the challenge, the trial with joy.

Essentially, to relish as best we can in the sorrow, the failure, the shortcoming, the hurt and to trust that it is temporary.


And maybe to be reminded that

Here's to friends and falling leaves and quiet moments of solitude that let us know we're not alone in our journey.