I've been mulling over these thoughts for several weeks after my good friend started talking to me about "disease literature". Mainly, the misconception that, it's ok if terrible things are happening in your life because you're being tested and honed and that makes everything ok, so you just embrace that suffering. SUFFER. You'll end up better for it.
I've decided, I have a problem with this in a lot of different ways, but mainly because it bothers me that people would live out their lives unhappy holding to the idea that they are supposed to be.
I say this without regard to anyone's religious beliefs but, I always loved the line from THE COLOR PURPLE when Miss Sophia tells Miss Celie "You oughta bash Mister's head open and think about heaven later."
The bigger message there, more than violence and the afterlife is this - quit living in suffering willingly.
On the day these pictures were taken, we were strolling through a beautiful Federalist garden in Atlanta, enjoying the sights and the peace of the amazing foliage.
The statuary was amazing and graceful, and I was really enjoying snapping pictures of our day, as my children ran and played up and down the hedge rows.
It was shortly after we discovered the wonder of this solitary elephant, that the sky opened up. Rain and thunder came down on my family as we scurried and hurried back through the garden and down the paths to find shelter back in the main museum.
It rained on our day. It rained with extreme downpour, in fact. It wasn't a trial or a test. If I WERE a religious person, I wouldn't be able to carry big enough ego to presume I'd warrant such a test, or any other kind of test. As I'm not religious, I know this - sometimes it rains.
The trick is, you don't let the rain ruin your day.
And you don't let your trials ruin your life.
0 comments:
Post a Comment