Drink Deeply

"We all must hold the cups of our lives.  As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life - personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene - everything within and around us conspires to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows.  "Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it," we say to ourselves and hear others say to us.   But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows."  Henri Nouwen

I have been avoiding feeling the sadness of the accumulated losses of my past several years.  It usually takes the support of friends for me to find the courage to face the despair and loss and sit with these feelings.  But there is a truth in what Nouwen says.  There is a way to sit with them.  it does involve befriending my sorrows.  This is not to become a perpetual victim, nor a sad-sack that keeps the pain front and centre.  

There is a way between ignoring and obsessing.  

There is a way to hold the sorrow beside the joy, without either cancelling out the other.  Instead, each brings a depth and texture to what becomes a magnificent pairing.

May I come to drink the cup of my whole life, the bitter and the sweet, the tangy, the rich, and the smoky, the light and the dark.  May I trust that ALL of my life in its blending is perhaps becoming a fine wine, with depth and texture, perhaps bitterness or edginess, but balanced with sweetness, earthiness or dare I say, a chocolaty note? 

If indeed we can and must embrace all of our story, then there is a way that even this drink, this cup of life with all its tones, is delicious and worthy too.  Perhaps it is my palate that needs maturing into a greater appreciation.  I have indeed found some of life's greatest joys in the midst of the darkest moments, as Nouwen suggests.  So I am finding my courage to sit with the darker notes again.  And I lift my cup to you, that we may drink deeply life beside each other in friendship, appreciating the richness, and allowing all the flavours to speak.  

Peace and blessings,

Alison