Sprouting, Struggling
“For every new way of being, there is a failed attempt mulching beneath the tongue. For every sprig that breaks surface, there is an old stick stirring underground. For every moment of joy sprouting, there is a new moment of struggle taking root.” Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening. Inwardoutward.org, Daily Quote, May 24, 2018.
Two Anthony School Graduates
I have a friend who has recently had surgery and has gone through weeks and hours of difficult physical therapy to recover. I still remember what this was like. Multiple failed attempts before we can see any movement. Pain. Improvement by inches. Dependence on others. Sometimes the only person who thinks we can make it is the therapist and our experienced physician.
This reminds me of the importance of spiritual friends. Sometimes our spiritual friends and a spiritual director are the only ones who know we will connect to God while all we can see is separation.
I saw this today at the graduation of our granddaughter Zoe from the school she had attended since she was in pre-kindergarten. It was also the school her father attended from the first grade and graduated from thirty-four years ago. All of the speakers were the eighth-grade graduates. They did not just talk about joyous times which indeed were abundant. They also talked about struggles and how they overcame them or worked through them because of their fellow students and the support of their teachers. I remember the articulate student body vice president boasting that he knew he could not have put the sentences together for his speech if it had not been for his English teacher, Carolyn Caig. What an unusual and appreciative tribute to remember a grammar teacher! What a gift she must have to instill in students the value of grammar.
All of the student speakers remembered the importance of their friends. They cried when their friends spoke and enthusiastically applauded after each presentation. It was not a competitive event. It was a lesson in what community and caring for others through good and difficult times is like. Gratitude filled the hall. There also was great diversity which made this community even richer.
The struggle was the leaving behind of teachers and friends as all go off to several different high schools, some public, some private, some all-girls, some all-boys. The answer of course is now they are so well immersed in the need and desire for a diverse community that they will make new communities and take the love for each other they have learned out into a larger world.
I am counting on these teenagers to teach us what spiritual friends can be like, those who see love and lend love even when the air seems loveless. I want to cry and applaud again without shame or competition.
Losing this need and joy for a connection to a varied community should not be a part of matriculation or maturation.
Joanna joannaseibert.com