The source from which Yogiisms began has passed on. No I am not a sports fan. I will however endlessly appreciate Yogi
Berra’s paradoxical wisdom and how he so easily quipped them into
existence.
I appreciate a good story.
I can only imagine the unfolding of Berra’s whole life. Though I don’t intellectually know much about
him, I can assume a lot based on the amount of his passion. He dedicated the majority of his life to
playing, managing, or writing about baseball. Yet to say his existence was
somehow without suffering would be an understatement. A man doesn’t get wise without some level of
suffering and I would also add that a man doesn’t stay passionate if things are
too easy. Again, I am assuming or maybe
a better way to say it is that I know without knowing.
Another good story.
I recently read, “Heart of Darkness” by Joseph Conrad, in
the book he describes his experiences (through the character Marlow) while on
the Congo River in Africa. What brought
me to this particular story was an episode of “Parts Unknown” where Anthony
Bourdain travels on the Congo River. He
does this because of his admiration for the book, “Heart of Darkness”. During the episode he quotes Conrad by
saying,
“It is written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.”
I mean, did you read that? ^
Not just read it but REALLY read it.
Let that sentence stir around in your gray matter and sink into your
central nervous system for a hot minute or thirty.
I read this and instantly thought of marriage. If you are taking the time to read this blog
more than likely you already know I’ve been married once before, if you didn’t
SURPRISE! My first marriage was to this
hilarious overly animated man whom I was IN LOVE with. In my ignorance, I believed, NO knew, my
marriage was going to be great because (I) loved him. But then reality sets in and bad days, stormy
days, down right shitty days come and you don’t feel that LOVE any longer.
I didn’t know that
marriage could be a nightmare.
(Side note: If you are experiencing abuse in your
relationship/marriage that’s a night terror and I would never suggest loyalty
in such a situation)
Almost two years ago I married again but this time I knew,
this ain’t no cake walk. Anything we
commit to for better or worse will naturally follow a system of ups and
downs. Your job, being a parent,
college, relocating, mission work, etc.
Are all things that require a form of commitment or loyalty (rightly so)
and all things that have the capacity to cast darkness on our lives.
I’m not writing this to offer a solution because there isn’t
one. I’m writing this because maybe you
are like me and maybe you didn’t realize until later that life is a struggle. It just
plain ol sucks. Yeah Yeah, its also
beautiful and full of wonder, imagination, and endless episodes of House. Trust me I can release sunshine from my
eyeballs with the best of them, but we all have to deal with our chosen nightmares.
The Bible addresses suffering numerous times. This isn’t an accident, more of a reminder
that suffering is going to happen. So
the question becomes what do you do with it?
And that is a question that has endless answers. At the path of choice is when we start
experiencing the most division and judgment.
So what I want to end with is this.
Remember to be good to each other and to yourselves. Though we all choose to handle our nightmares
or night terrors differently we all have them.
Thus we are united in suffering.
Blessings
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