It's really sad how it sometimes takes a national tragedy to shift your perspective in a reasonable direction. We all suffer bad things, but we get into trouble trying to decide who suffers more than another (a game that many people sometimes enjoy playing). Sometimes, though, it's obvious. Sometimes we need reminders that the world is much, much bigger than just ourselves.
Even in private grief that has me utterly convinced life cannot get any worse...I am always aware that it can. Six months ago today, I went to bed after what should have been a normal day, and woke up in hell. God answered my prayer to dig me out of an abusive relationship. I felt like I lost so much, it killed me to know I could never get back the amount of time I had wasted, losing myself in another person. But, as the tenth anniversary of 9/11 proves, the heart is a very resilient thing. Lives crumble, but they can be rebuilt. People are taken from us, but life soldiers on anyway.
It baffles me how that happens. I don't know how or why it happens, I'm just so grateful that it does.
I just sat through the movie United 93 on TV and bawled my eyes out, something I haven't done since my remaining days in LT. I thought I had used up all the tears my body is capable of producing during the three months I spent in Colorado; apparently, I can still make more. So that's a good thing, I'm not completely numb yet. I'm probably too young to be jaded and apathetic about the world and all the bad people in it.
Even if this wasn't actual footage, and the real people who died were represented by actors, the grief I saw was real. It's the kind that makes people give up on faith altogether, or cling to it with a desperate realization that even a small strand of it is better than having nothing at all.
I was 12 years old when it happened, just gotten out of PE, and was, ironically, on my way to my American History class. Naturally, the lesson for the day was cancelled, and we watched the news instead. Not having lost anyone close to me that day, it's hard to feel the same kind of grief as those who were more personally affected. But I admire the resilience in the survivors. I admire anyone who can manage just to get out of bed in the morning when everything seems hopeless. Eventually, I suppose you get to a point where you have no choice but to survive. And it's such a hard, sucky choice, but what other choice is there?
Hence the meaning behind my newest tattoo. "Choose Joy" is more than just a cutesy motto.
This quote has given me much to think about:
"Our generation, as long as we've had an identity, was known as the generation that had it easy.We had no crisis, no Vietnam, no Martin Luther King, no JFK. We've got it now. When we have kids and grandkids, we'll tell them that we lived through the roaring '90s, when all we cared about was the No. 1 movie or how many copies an album sold. This is where it changes." (Greg Epstein)
What does it mean to define yourself by a tragedy? Is it healthy? To an extent, maybe it is. It's a sign that nothing bad that happens is ever in vain. Every life has a turning point; pain is probably the most common indicator of where one's purpose lies. If nothing else, pain turns us around and gives us something bigger to live for.
I'm not sure where I intended to go with this...for once I'm trying not to dwell too much on all the issues that stress my tiny little life. As a wanna-be chaplain, my spiritual gift is serving others in their tragedy. My perspective is ever-widening.
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