A beauty of a book.
I'm reading Learning to Fall, The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by
Philip Simmons. Philip wrote the book while he was suffering with Lou Gehrig's Disease. It is a book about living fully. He wrote it as he was dying. Among other things, he speaks of the folly of looking at life as though it is a technical matter; a problem to be solved. Listen:
And here is where we go wrong. For at its deepest levels life is not a problem but a mystery. The distinction, which I borrow from the philosopher Gabriel Marcel, is fundamental: problems are to be solved, true mysteries are not. Personally, I wish I could have learned this lesson more easily--without, perhaps, having to give up my tennis game. But each of us finds his or her own way to mystery. At one time or another, each of us confronts an experience so powerful, bewidering, joyous, or terrifying that all our efforts to see it as a "problem" are futile. Each of us is brought to the cliff's edge. At such moments we can either back away in bitterness or confusion, or leap forward into mystery. And what does mystery ask of us? Only that we be in its presence, that we fully, consciously, hand ourselves over. That is all, and that is everything. We can participate in mystery only by letting go of solutions. this letting go is the first lesson of falling, and the hardest.
Learning to Fall, p. 8
Long ago Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Today it's about the questions, the mystery.
I'm reading Learning to Fall, The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by
Philip Simmons. Philip wrote the book while he was suffering with Lou Gehrig's Disease. It is a book about living fully. He wrote it as he was dying. Among other things, he speaks of the folly of looking at life as though it is a technical matter; a problem to be solved. Listen:
And here is where we go wrong. For at its deepest levels life is not a problem but a mystery. The distinction, which I borrow from the philosopher Gabriel Marcel, is fundamental: problems are to be solved, true mysteries are not. Personally, I wish I could have learned this lesson more easily--without, perhaps, having to give up my tennis game. But each of us finds his or her own way to mystery. At one time or another, each of us confronts an experience so powerful, bewidering, joyous, or terrifying that all our efforts to see it as a "problem" are futile. Each of us is brought to the cliff's edge. At such moments we can either back away in bitterness or confusion, or leap forward into mystery. And what does mystery ask of us? Only that we be in its presence, that we fully, consciously, hand ourselves over. That is all, and that is everything. We can participate in mystery only by letting go of solutions. this letting go is the first lesson of falling, and the hardest.
Learning to Fall, p. 8
Long ago Rainer Maria Rilke wrote, Have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.
Today it's about the questions, the mystery.
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