Protecting one another's aloneness...


Tiny figure...solitary life in the midst of a very large world...look closely, and you'll see the person there...representing me...representing you...
We want, most of us anyway, to feel like we're "with", and not alone in the world. And in truth, we have moments when we experience what it is to be "with" another...in relationship, in family...in worship...but truly, at the deepest part of our souls, we are solitary in this life.
No one can really come into the secret place that is the heart and soul of a person. Perhaps this is why our yearning for connectedness can be so very strong, and the loss of connection so very painful...it reminds us that we are like the figure on the beach...walking a journey that is ours alone. We look for people to come along side, and walk with us...but they don't stay, can't stay...because they are on a solitary journey too, and their journey may call them away from us...will call them away from us, sometime...or, our journey will call us away...and our paths ultimately part ways...either in life, or in death.
As I walk along the path I find myself on, I'm continuing to read Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak. I am so very grateful for this small book...I'm not sure what else I could possibly read at this time that could get through to the place in me that needs comforting... Parker talks about "protecting one another's aloneness...", as if it's a good thing. I have to confess, I am not crazy right now about the idea of people helping to protect my aloneness...but I know that he's right, and there's not a thing I can do to change the deep truth of this principle.
Parker also says that we should best understand life as the cycle of seasons...spring, summer, fall...winter. When winter comes to you in summer, it seems especially harsh...and winter is harsh in many ways. In Parker's words, "Winter clears the landscape, however brutally, giving us a chance to see ourselves and each other more clearly, to see the very ground of our being." And, he goes on to say that we must get out into the winter, to walk directly into the harsh cold, if we are to learn what winter has to teach us. His invitation to brave the cold is an unwelcome one for me...I would so much rather stay inside where I thought it was warm.

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