shared Elizabeth Gilbert
Dear Ones -
I love this line, from the poet Rudy Francisco.
There is so much heart, courage, and wisdom in this thought.
I think one of the most challenging creative assignments the universe will ever give you is this: There will come a time in your life (in all of our lives; it seems to be a law of living) when you will be asked to fill in a space that has been left empty by the departure of someone you love.
The person whom you lost can never be replaced, but still...that empty space will beg to be filled — will NEED to be filled — and that empty space will call to you, asking you not only to grieve in stillness (which you must do) but also, over time, to challenge you to push yourself to the utmost edges of your creativity.
When I say that we must use our "creativity" in the face of loss, I don't mean to say that you have to write a book about it, or paint a picture about it. But you do have to do SOMETHING — create something within that empty space — or that empy space will become all that you are.
You will need to use your most creative mind, in order to reimagine a new and completely different life for yourself.
You will need not only strength and faith, but creativity, in order to imagine your life beyond the unimaginable...because it is your imagination that will help you move into that new life.
In the last few months, so many people I love have lost people they love. Either through separations or deaths, people are losing each other all the time, it seems. It has been difficult to witness the pain of my friends. It has also been inspiring to see how, already, on the heels of such hard losses, my friends are beginning to creatively re-imagine their lives. Each in their own way.
They will never be the same, but what they may become now — by re-imagining the unimaginable — might be something very beautiful.
Today, I ask all of you who have lost people you loved (whether they left you, or whether you had to let them go, or whether they passed away) to share your experiences of what you filled that space with, and how you found your way back home to beauty and light and meaning again. A different kind of beauty and light and meaning, but real, nonetheless. What my friend Rob Bell calls "the light after the darkness after the light".
None of our journeys after loss will be the same, but all of our journeys can inform each other's journeys. That's what we are here for, I believe.
So today my Sunday prayer is this — will you bring your wisdom and grace here today, and share your experiences, if you will be so kind? Maybe you will help a friend you never met.
ONWARD,
LG
LG
And for more on the wonderful poet Rudy Francisco, please go to @rudyfranciscopoetry or http://www.iamrudyfrancisco.com
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