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dear mother teresa...i have a question.


"Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is bliss, taste it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it."
 
-Mother Teresa



I really appreciate the simplicity of Mother Teresa's sensibility and aware with all. Her wisdom is forever received around the globe and honored and cherished by so many, and I think it's because of it's lucid candor. She's easy to understand. Plain and simple. But is it easy to do what it is she guides us to do? Hmmm...no.

"Life is tragedy, confront it."

Dear Mother Teresa,
 
This phrase stands out the most for me. Is this supposed to be painfully difficult to do, confront life's tragedies? It kind of feels like it is. What does it actually mean to "confront" life's tragedies? Do I already know how to do this, or is this a life long journey toward a revelation, a destination I have yet to reach? Is to "confront" the tragedy the same thing as "letting go", and what exactly is "letting go"?  I'm not sure I've ever really known what it means to l-e-t g-o, to be totally honest. 

Letting go:  Is it a f*** it! I'm over it attitude? Or...is it some kind of divine and spiritual, guru like grace that comes from within, a grace that is so easily replaced by revolting emotions and defended resentments? I confuse the two sometimes--grace vs. an attitude problem. It's almost like they go hand in hand though, on a bad day. If our mind clings to our rapid and unreliable emotions, as it does daily, as well as to all that which defeats us and breaks our hearts life after life after life after life; is there really such a thing...such a thing as "letting go"?

In this life, I believe we don't forget to remember somebody, somebody we knew before. We don't forget them. So what is "letting go" if we just keep remembering everything, soul mates...past lives? And, for what is the use of a memory if we are to forget each other? Bottom line, we don't forget each other. So what is confrontation and how do we "let go"?

Maybe saying thank you to the tragedy is confrontation enough. Thank you heartache, I needed you to help me grow. Maybe feeling gratitude is actually the same thing as "letting go". These are just my thoughts. It feels right though, gratitude.

I personally think it's everyone's dirty little secret; our inevitable inability to truly let things go. I think it's a secret we each live with, a secret we live to tell...each other. Maybe it's not even a secret. Our real life story: That which we hold onto, and all that we remember.

Letting go.

Is there such a thing?

Mother Tereas would say yes. I would say...probably not.



-AM

Comments

  1. My opinion is we can let go but its not easy. For myself its not thinking about that "thing". That's actualy why I like to escape in my own little world. I watch a movie that takes me away into another life. If something is bothering me I try to deal with it the best I can but when there seems to be no immediate answer that's when i say the hell with it.
    It's good to distance ourselves, sometime we can see the situation better.

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  2. "the hell with it" is pretty much the same as the "fuck it!" I'm over it attitude. Is this our divine grace? Is it really "letting go"? Or, is it a forced effort we make, an attempt at forgetting about something we ultimately will always remember.

    We can watch a movie and laugh, sure. But, what happens when the movie is over?

    Have we really "let go"? Hmmm. no.

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  3. Like Jim Carey in "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" as one let's go they begin to see through all the crap that warped the mind and eye's. And maybe like the movie see the "true good" in the situation and not want to release the memorys from the mind. I have tons of memorys that I don't wish to "remember". But why make my day bad by focusing in on them? Is that "letting go"? Maybe, or maybe it's just moving on. For as the Greek tale states" I will not drink from the waters of Lethe"
    "Maybe the out come you are trying so hard to force isn't the outcome that comes naturaly to you" Deepak Chopra
    "True Illumination comes from releasing yourself completely from desiring the goods of this world and fearing their loss" Joseph Campbell

    "Om Namah Shivaya"
    Patrick

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