Can you sit with the debris, and learn to love the pieces?

Hard times are a fact of life.
Life, with all of it's beauty,
often presents many challenges.

These challenges seem to test our faith, our emotions, our spiritual path, our finances, our sense of fairness, our mental health, our physical health, our relationships,
and our perceived foundations.
How do you cope?

How do you keep your feet walking the path, when the "winds of change" bend you to your breaking point? How do keep your focus, your trust, and your dignity?

How can you keep love in your heart for all the good that surrounds you daily?
How do you keep centered and "in the present moment"?
When is giving up-noble?

And, even if you stay focused-recognizing the goodness in life,
what happens when you fail, anyway?
When it all falls away, what keeps you sane...ready to try once more?

When it all falls away,
and all your coping skills fail,
and your spiritual practice can't hold you,
what then?

Can you sit with the debris and learn to love the pieces?

I want to know.

Because, here's what's real for me. I really tried not to let the anger in.
I so wanted to rise above the fray after experiencing, yet another, divine insult.

I will answer one of my own questions...Maybe that is a good place for me to begin healing.

When it all falls away, and all your coping skills fail, and your spiritual practice can't hold you, what then?
I hit this wall the first time when I was 28.
I had a nervous breakdown and tried to commit suicide.
I just hit the wall of -nothing working. Everything was broken.
I was too deep into a pit of despair.

I didn't think God could reach me where I was.

I was wrong, but it took 5 years of clinical psychology, behavioral therapy, and medication to bring me back to the land of the living.

Coincidentally, I am now 38, and am hitting another wall. I feel different this time. I feel alive, and awake, and pissed off.

Yes, I have a level of despair, and I feel I've been bent to the breaking point once again, maybe even worse now, because there is more for me to lose. I am not sure how I keep functioning.

I have wild hope that seem inappropriate.
(passing my National boards, and allowing myself to be loved, really loved.)

I have little faith in the world, but I have faith in me.

I see global, epic, unfairness and find myself barring my teeth, at my Goddess.

I am holding her at arms length, because I want to slap the crap out of her.

I see myself as a woman who has beaten incredible odds, only to be stopped short at this new finish line. And, I can't hold a Goddess tenderly, that would let me be beaten, when I have done the work to clean up my mess.


I did the work.

I did it well.

I needed her blessing.

I got another obstacle.

Well, that is just bullshit.

I find myself asking- why bother? why continue trying to make a difference when nothing I've done is enough to get my good intentions on her list- to be seen as one trying. I think my outrage at Goddess is a part of my healing. I also believe it is the reason why I will survive this latest blow. But, I am tired of survival. To me, there has to be more.


I don't give up- except for the one time I gave up completely.

I won't do that this time. There is too much at stake.

I worry however, even after I somehow make this "all work out", that I might lose some compassion for myself and consequently for others, because I am sick of being strong.


Sick of my best chances, my strongest endeavors, not meeting up with a universal
just response.

I continue to stand. That is the answer to the damn question.
I stand.
But, so what?
What does it mean to withstand, anything?


I am tired of always standing. I stand for many something's
I stand for truth, and for principle, and just because I can.
I stand for love, for honor, and, for giving a shit.

But right now, I'm going to sit.
Because, standing for all of it hasn't meant a damn thing.
Right now, I need to sit with the debris and learn to love the pieces.

Frankly, the pieces are all that's left.

-Renee