What Life Does To Us
This may get ugly before it gets better
“The truth is that life will break us and burn us at some point on the journey. This is not pessimistic or cynical but descriptive of the geography of being alive. It is part of how we are transformed by the journey. Yet when we’re broken or burned by events, we feel betrayed by God. When we’re broken or burned by people, we feel betrayed by other souls.”
The point is to live in expectation, not only in the hope of more goodness to come but also in the reality check that hard things are very much on their way. We need to be alive to navigating all parts of life’s geography.
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What Is Sacred by Mark Nepo offers ancient and contemporary practices to help us stay close to what is sacred. In this spiritual memoir, Nepo explores the transformational journey with insight and grace. He unfolds the many gifts and challenges of deep listening as we are asked to reflect on the life we are given.
Nepo decided to write this when he learned that he was losing his hearing. He thought of all the thousands of ways there are to talk, and then asked himself if there were just as many ways to listen. A moving exploration of self and our relationship to others and the world around us, the book unpacks the many ways we are called to redefine ourselves and to name what is meaningful as we move through the changes that come from experience and aging and the challenge of surviving loss.
Have you experienced much grief, loss, or hardship in your life?
Did you navigate it in healthy or unhealthy ways?
What did the struggles teach you about yourself?
