Thankful for the mystery

Nov. 24, 2005

Dear Adams family,

The book atop the stack on my reading table offers this challenge: Go 24 hours without complaining about anything. Go ahead and try. Few people can do it, the author says. We have to complain about something to someone -- often to the people we love the most. And the people we love the most are the people we complain about the most -- even if only to ourselves.

Today we stop complaining for awhile to say thanks for all the goodness in our lives. For the dreams we have harvested, for our peculiar and beloved families, for the friends who encourage us, for the soulfulness in our lives.

But we also ought to give thanks for the rest of life, for the parts that don't seem so pleasing. They're essential to life, too, and illuminate our way in ways the rest cannot.

In his poem "The Guest House," Rumi writes:

"This being human is a guest house.

Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,

some momentary awareness comes

as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!

Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,

who violently sweep your house

empty of its furniture,

still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be clearing you out

for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,

meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,

because each has been sent

as a guide from beyond."

Lost in a wilderness of Porches and ceaseless Southern California sun many years ago, I at times despaired. But the realization that I was lost reflected back to me day after day, made me begin looking for my way back home. And it was your family, each one so accepting of the nine others, who always met me at the door laughing and invited me in. You pointed me in the direction of a truth discovered later on: That I did not love and accept myself without conditions.

Learning to love yourself, other people and life without complaint and conditions are the requirements of sainthood. Most of us have only an inkling of life in that state.

This is my inkling: Once these fundamental understandings have been ascertained, jewels beckon from all the corners of your vision. What you've been missing can be seen. The great mystery calls your name.

Giving thanks today is a prayer to the mystery of love without beginning and without end. Amen.

Love, Sam

Sam Blackwell is managing editor of the Southeast Missourian.