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No ash-still a Pandemic! But some thoughts:
Per my comments today on @AroundtheHorn on @RyanDLeaf on the death of Vincent Jackson...
The ash is a symbol, the goal is renewal & confronting our own mortality.
After the year we just had you're thinking-no need to be https://twitter.com/wrdcsc/status/1362044105623298050
Per my comments today on @AroundtheHorn on @RyanDLeaf on the death of Vincent Jackson...
The ash is a symbol, the goal is renewal & confronting our own mortality.
After the year we just had you're thinking-no need to be https://twitter.com/wrdcsc/status/1362044105623298050
reminded of mortality, death is everywhere and it's brutal. That's true, but consider how opening ourselves up to the struggle in life all around us - like Leaf did -might be a way to better process that. This can apply to our own struggle-or maybe more pointedly- someone else’s.
You’ve heard me say compassion literally means “to suffer with.” But there’s another part to that: it can be action. Suffer with AND actively relieve that person who is suffering.
That’s hard. Everything in your being wants to run away from loss, not talk about pain,
That’s hard. Everything in your being wants to run away from loss, not talk about pain,
turn away from suffering. We may not even have the eyes to see how we and others truly suffer.
An example of that is the helpless feeling we've all felt this last year. You check in on people, ask if they’re ok, yet feel there is nothing you can really do. Zoom funerals are
An example of that is the helpless feeling we've all felt this last year. You check in on people, ask if they’re ok, yet feel there is nothing you can really do. Zoom funerals are
heartbreaking. Or, how do I really confront racism, sexism, ableism, other inequalites etc? If that's giving a feeling of helplessness think about how a feeling can lead to a doing. The action of compassion.
This is what I heard in @RyanDLeaf's comments on Vincent Jackson:
This is what I heard in @RyanDLeaf's comments on Vincent Jackson:
Leaf is speaking from his life experience-as he lives with the disease of addiction- and the fight is exhausting and isolating. After this year, maybe we can relate to that even more, as we're all so isolated and so exhausted.
And former athletes like Jackson his family says he was dealing with alcoholism and diminishments from concussive injuries -or, anyone dealing with suffering to the degree may be too helpless to fight. The key is in other people. Others must fight for the suffering.
We all need to have a more realistic view of that. Because how we treat our most vulnerable is a measure of who we are. And right now any one of us can be our most vulnerable.
This Lent instead of giving something up consider giving something. The act of compassion.
This Lent instead of giving something up consider giving something. The act of compassion.
