Stephany posted this piece by Kahlil Gibran yesterday. I was going to allow a respectful amount of time before posting it here but it feels so fitting now. Thank you Stephany.
I am filled with sorrow now. Though things really are working out with my husband, I am about to move into a cottage and live alone for a time. I need this. There is no doubt that I need this. But it is not pain free. It is agonizing. We both hurt. We hurt because we love each other and we don’t always know how best to show that. Sometimes we fail showing it all together. My circumstances have made me so sensitive that I do not tolerate other human beings for very long. Not more than an hour or two. People are noise after a while. That is what talking feels like after I’ve had my limit. Annoying, grating noise.
Yes I’m sad and filled with sorrow. Here is what the prophet has to say about sorrow (and joy).
Joy and Sorrow
Then a woman said, ‘Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.’
And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that hold your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, ‘Joy is greater than sorrow,’ and others say, ‘Nay, sorrow is the greater.’
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Kahlil Gibran
Gianna, Essential Wellness has some very comforting articles this month on Healing our Hearts – http://www.esswellness.com
oops – credit to the author –
book of Sirach (ecclesiastical – greek)
duane
When I read the wonderful writings you send to one-another, I am reminded of a verse I love –
A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter;
he who finds one finds a treasure
A faithful friend is beyond price;
no sum can balance his worth
Thank you –
Duane
I like this one even better:
Long were the days of pain I have spent within its walls, and long were the nights of aloneness; and who can depart from his pain and his aloneness without regret?
Too many fragments of the spirit have I scattered in these streets, and too many are the children of my longing that walk naked among these hills, and I cannot withdraw from them without a burden and an ache.
It is not a garment I cast off this day, but a skin that I tear with my own hands.
The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran
I wish you peace Gianna, and that was left on my site from a reader who saw one of my posts of frustration and left that as a result. I needed to read that, and it’s why I put it out of comments right to the top –for myself! and everyone else to read, it really does speak to my heart now too.
[and I had not read it before]
I hope readers of both of our sites will reflect on that piece all weekend.
Take care,
Stephany