KIND & ALIGNED by Christian Wiman


“The people I’ve known, the great teachers, the great mystics who’ve suffered and worked their way through it, find that the suffering carves a space out in your heart. 

In that wide open space, you can feel not only your pain but the pain of others and the pain of the world.

You are quick to tears for the rest of your life. But that same space also holds joy. 


The people I know who’ve really faced suffering and tragedy are the quickest to tears, but also the quickest to laughter, and the quickest to joy.


The act of solidarity somehow lessens the pain. We’re able to say, “I choose to carry it with you.” 


It’s really an alchemy. 

It lives differently in our hearts. 

We don’t love it, but we have the grace to tolerate it. 


Not with resistance, but with yes

That doesn’t come in a moment. 

It comes with time and maturity.  


I experience this brightness as a new clarity. 

The light is illuminating it better. 

That’s what sadness often offers us: 

a new clarity about the tragic sense of life. 

It’s not inappropriate—it’s clarifying, it’s bright. 


There is some inexplicable connection between suffering and joy. One of the greatest graces of this existence is that we are able to experience joy in the midst of suffering. 


We might not be able to experience happiness. You can’t in the midst of suffering, but there can be moments of great joy in the midst of the worst suffering. 


I take that to reveal that these two things are raveled up in ways that we don’t understand, but which are essential to our existence.”


—Christian Wiman, 

Everything Belongs

Podcast




LIGHT HEARTED 💕 LIFE’S SENSUALITY

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