It Is What It Is

I'm guessing you might like to hear me write about something else besides what is going on in my life right now. I'd actually like to write about something else besides what is going on in my life right now. But I'm afraid we are all out of luck as I seem to be in this kind of all consuming foggy place where it is pretty much all I think about, talk about, obsess about and write about here and elsewhere. I am so grateful that God has gifted me with patient and kind friends, in my blog and unblog life all of whom are much kinder and more compassionate than I am to myself.

I guess I am on verse three of that country song. Verse one was the one about how it's nobody's fault and we are loving and kind and riding the high road together. Verse two was the sad and lonely verse....house full of empty, heart full of sad. Now we are hitting verse three... the angry verse. Dirty looks and nasty notes, and things done by the other just because they know and they can and they will. The verse where reality hits and reality bites and suddenly breaking up doesn't seem like it was such a bad idea after all. But the chorus is still more sad than anything. Oh, I am angry, make no mistake, but it's a frustrated kind of mad, frustrated that it does not have to be this way. We had some ground rules set to protect us both and they were not kept. I am angry and sad about that, and said so. There was backlash about my speaking up. Now I am angry and sad about that, too. It doesn't have to be this way. We could do this a better way, really we could. So it seems there is nothing more to say at this point. It is what it is. I don't know about the next verse. We seem to be in new territory here.

So in the midst of all of this, because I really do want to write and think about something else, or at least try to open myself to a different way of looking at all of it, this Rumi poem came back into my life this morning. This poem is an old friend from the first time I went to Mexico for the yoga retreat. I think it has something to say to me today about where everything is in my life. I talk to my clients a lot about how nothing is wasted if we can find meaning. So I guess the question becomes for me today, what meaning do I find in this unexpected turn of events....in this change from the "friendly time apart while we work on things" to "mortal combat" in the blink of an eye and without my consent. How do I welcome and entertain this unexpected (and out of control) new business in my life and all that might come with it? How do I deal with this new crowd of sorrows and continue to trust that perhaps this is a spring cleaning, that perhaps there is a point to it all that I can't see. Oh yeah, back to that darn trust and submission.....again! I used to read this daily, sometimes more than once. Convinced I was that there was Big Truth here for me. I think perhaps it is no accident that I opened Explore Faith this morning and there was Rumi with "my poem" right here, right now. At least it gives me something else to think about besides verse three. Anger was getting old.

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are 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.