Experience…

Joy at Work. Joy at Home. Joy in Spirit.

Contemplating a lovely letter (email) I received from a reader this morning in response to my article, “Rediscovering God,” I am reminded of one of my favorite childhood stories, “The Velveteen Rabbit.”

In the email, he describes the pain of having had many losses, which includes the recent loss of his family dog and the other inevitable losses that come with being a human person.

What strikes me about his letter, though, is the undercurrent of love and hope for himself and the future,  “[For now] I just try to do my part and clear out the rubbish that clutters my heart from God.“

Upon reading his letter, my immediate feeling is that this man deeply loves life, and with that love comes pain. The more deeply we love, the more vulnerable we are to the pain of loss and disillusionment.

But childhood stories like the “Velveteen Rabbit” point to a greater truth;  that there is redemptive mercy that interpenetrates this world and that fierce love enjoins this mercy to our consciousness and makes It manifest in our life.

From The Velveteen Rabbit:

He thought of the Skin Horse, so wise and gentle, and all that he had told him. Of what use was it to be loved and lose one’s beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground.

 

 

And then a strange thing happened. For where the tear had fallen a flower grew out of the ground, a mysterious flower, not at all like any that grew in the garden…It was so beautiful that the little Rabbit forgot to cry, and just lay there watching it. And presently the blossom opened, and out of it there stepped a fairy. 

 

 

The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams

 

If you care deeply about life and sometimes feel disheartened or even grief-stricken at what’s going on in your personal life and/or in the world, take heart. There are mercies that you do not yet know of.

It’s good to cry and it’s okay to sometimes feel sorry for yourself or feel that Life has abandoned you. This is normal.

But if it feels like it’s too much then do something kind for yourself; pick up a story that has heart and hope. Let the story stir the hope and love inside of you until, eventually, it comes spilling out, and, like the Rabbit, you are too rapt to cry. 

Krista