Beauty & The Beholder

Good evening my friends,

The weekend is almost over. The week which preceded the one which is right around the corner was very difficult for me. Two days in particular, Thursday and Friday, had me in a very deep depression with the darkness of that oblivion being the most overwhelming since the death of my mother. I remember sitting on my couch, face in my hands, feeling completely alone and abandoned; it was as though I was choking on nothing...seized by a combined fleet of feelings: fear, sadness, some anger, but anxiety more than anything.

Everything has since gotten a bit better...and a thought arose in the midst of the maelstrom during walking meditation just yesterday. We who have fallen short of what we would be, we who look at ourselves as disfigured and disgusting, we who are repulsed - we sometimes forget a truth. We are still beautiful when we behold the hope which always stands ready to relieve us.

Even when we relapse. Even when the circumstances in our lives have fractured, frazzled, and formed huge chasms separating us from contentment as we cling to the cliffs of crumbling sanity. The shame we feel is nothing in comparison with the serenity which we stand to possess if we continue onward, picking ourselves up each time we stumble...and when we fall particularly far and a friend of the Community offers us their hands we can accept the offer knowing it's not too late.

We share a common beauty as living creatures, a nobility of spirit and a great potential. Let the tears of frustration we shed fill the arid desert of despair where we sometimes find ourselves...so that from grief there might be growth after a while and a Spring which arrives after our Winter of discontent. Goodnight..