Splinters and pearls and other reasons to welcome life's difficult moments...



My daily reading today included timely wisdom on the subject of how we tend to deal with difficulty and conflict in our lives. For most of us, the prospect of dealing with a crisis or relational confrontation is an unpleasant thing...something to be avoided whenever possible.


But what if we could see difficulties with new eyes, and actually change our perspective so that we could genuinely welcome difficulties and conflict as gifts to be cherished, rather than a curse to be avoided?


I thought about the story I've heard many times about pearls, and the fact that they are created through a process of friction within the oyster. When I looked up the subject, I was surprised by what I learned. Apparently, the creation of a pearl doesn't even begin until a foreign substance slips into the oyster and irritates the oyster's mantle of protection. The process is compared to what we experience when we get a splinter under our skin.


What is the oyster's reaction to this irritant?? It generates a substance to cover up the irritating object and avoid the friction that it causes. Wow. The parallels to our human reaction to irritation are striking, to me at least.... How many times do we try and cover up the things that irritate us? How often have you tried to put something...time, space, activity, other people...in between you and the thing (or person) that is irritating you?


For the oyster, and I think for us as well, the instinct to cover up the irritant is driven by self-protection. What the oyster doesn't know, is that the aggravation will ultimately become a beautiful pearl. Oysters can't know this, because oysters don't have the gift of rational thought...


But humans do have this gift, and so we are capable of looking beyond life's conflict and irritation to see the pearls of maturity and wisdom that result from those difficulties. We are not limited by base animal instincts, but can choose to welcome that which is uncomfortable, knowing that friction brings growth, and that over time, growth can...if we let it, yield beauty.











Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Contemplative Politics

Image
I began writing this blog 2 1/2 years ago...what can only be described as several lifetimes ago, from the perspective of the events that have transpired in my life since May of 2010.   I won't take the time to recount those events, but suffice to say, I never imagined that I would use this space to contemplate politics, or the place that our political perspectives may take on the path of our individual spiritual journeys... To rightly share my story, I must go back in time to January of 2008, when I, like many Americans, first heard then-candidate Senator Barack Obama speak after his groundbreaking win in the Iowa caucus.  I remember the experience quite vividly, because I was mesmorized by the ideal he seemed to represent.  As I sat in a theater this afternoon watching the Dinesh D'Souza political documentary "2016", I was struck by the fact that much of our political consciousness is defined by what each of us projects upon the candidate of our choice. You mi
Read more

Strip down, start running...and never quit!

Image
I've made a commitment to participate in a 1/2 marathon on March 27th, 2011. To be precise, the event is the Rock 'n'Roll Dallas 1/2 Marathon, and we are raising money for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure Foundation. You might have noticed that I've made a commitment to participate , rather than to run , and there is a reason for the distinction. I'm using a training system for first-time 1/2 marathoners, and the process requires that you run 1/2 and walk 1/2 of the race...interestingly, the most challenging part of following this system is that I don't feel like I'm doing enough . Do you ever feel that way? Like you're not doing enough? At work, at home...in school...with your friends, for your family? I think it's a common experience, and it can wear you down, if you let it. As I've mentioned before, running has become an enormously helpful metaphor for how I understand life. I said in another blog this morning that my new life philosophy i
Read more

If it's Saturday, then it's a "TO DO" List...

Image
Last night I sat down for my evening reading and journaling...I had missed Thursday night, and realized how much I missed the rhythm of the daily ritual. It felt good to collect my thoughts, read my daily Proverb(s), and plan my weekend. So when I awoke this morning, I was the proud owner of a 15-item "TO DO" list. A track, if you will, to keep the train of my life on course this weekend. Not just any "TO DO" list, mind you, my list contains exotic items like: do laundry, water the plants, pay the bills, load the dishwasher, take out the trash, and clean the bathrooms. Clearly, I am living the life of the rich and famous! In all seriousness, the presence of a list is both helpful and comforting...helpful because it gives me a tool to know where I need to focus my energy, and comforting because it removes the random nature of what a weekend can sometimes become when we have dozens of things to do, and no plan to do them. I have a direction in my efforts - I am lookin
Read more