Some things are too wonderful for me…
“Too wonderful” in the sense that as much as I try to wrap my brain around the why and the how, I still cannot offer a definitive, concrete answer…
… like how the hawk can soar, so smoothly and serenely in mid-air…
… how the leopard, lizard, or chameleon can creatively “change his spots,” so-to-speak, blending into indigenous areas…
… or how the tide rolls so swiftly in, the powerful but simultaneously delicate ebbs and flows of the ocean…
Yes, there are things too wonderful for us — things we do not totally have the answer to — and are incapable of fully describing or comprehending.
One of the things I wrestle with on a more daily basis that I have yet to totally have the answer to is why and how we continually project emotion onto other people — the why and the how in regard to our expectation that all people should somehow feel the same way about all things…
… and if they don’t, they are either wrong or something far less worthy or wise than “me.”
Allow me a brief example, if you will…
I have friends and family for whom specific holidays are hard (… truth is, there are specific days for me that are hard). For some, it’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, or a specific person’s birthday. This past week, it was Valentine’s Day.
For various reasons — some big, some small, but reasons specific to another person — those days are hard.
I keep wrestling with this idea of loving our neighbors well. And the more I ponder and submit to authorities more omniscient than I, the more I see how perhaps the most pragmatic means of loving our neighbor well is having compassion for others in what’s hard for them. Note that I said “them”… not for me, for someone else, nor anyone down the street.
Loving our neighbor well means being in the trenches with that neighbor, so-to-speak… walking beside them… getting into the down and the dirty… showing compassion — empathy as much as possible… and attempting to truly understand another… especially in what’s hard.
But there’s an added nugget of wisdom we tend to omit: what’s hard for them is not necessarily hard for another. And therefore, loving my neighbor well does not mean I must dismiss the legitimacy of how another responds… to the day, event, or something else.
Yes, with some in the trenches, I share tears of sadness; with others, I share tears of joy. If I am am only willing to share one set of tears, then I am only loving some neighbors well. Tears for one do not preclude tears for the other.
It thus makes little sense to me why we continue to project our emotions onto all others. What makes more sense — at least from seemingly, a perspective of wisdom — is as reasonably as possible, without sacrificing authenticity, empathetically being “all things to all people.” That means loving the one you’re with, albeit potentially through various sets of tears. Sorry. I said this was hard.
Have you noticed the hawk soaring in mid-air lately? … how smoothly and serenely he soars?
Yes, some things are hard to totally wrap the brain around…
“Too wonderful”… yes, indeed.
Respectfully…
AR