It is difficult to know what and how to write in these times. Structures and norms and institutions we count on to be steady ground beneath our feet are crumbling or being intentionally destroyed.

Though my life, in and of itself, could not be considered difficult or threatened, it is still hard to know how to exist in these times, what to think, what to do, how to be, where to try to help or fight.

I lean into the wisdom of others. I look for thoughts and words that ring true, not hollow. That touch reality, not make-believe. That resonate, not restrict. That call upon my higher angels.

This bit of writing by poet, writer and Zen priest resonates with me. Calls me to see life, and its complexities, not as something to be overcome, but to be entered into with my entire being. Even the difficult. Especially the difficult.

Perhaps it speaks to you, too?

“Practice is not about overcoming human problems.

It’s not about becoming serene and transcendent.

It’s about embracing our lives as they really are, and understanding at every point how deep and profound and gorgeous everything is—even the suffering, even the difficulty.

So we forgive ourselves for our limitations, and we forgive this world for its pain.

We don’t say, 'That’s not pain.' It is pain.

You don’t say, 'It’s not difficulty.' It is difficult.

But when we embrace the difficulty… we see this is exactly the difficulty we need, and this difficulty is the most beautiful and poignant thing in this world."

- Zoketsu Norman Fischer

I feel compelled to add a caveat - There is nothing beautiful or poignant about war, or intentional starvation, or babies dying in their mother's arms, or masked men arresting people off the street, or health insurance being ripped away from human beings.

This quote is meant to wake us up.

To help those of us who fall prey to the assumption that our lives are so hard and so difficult that we drown in self-pity and thus fail to look beyond ourselves to the wailing world all around us.

This quote is meant to wake up those of us who live in safety and plenty to the truth that we are called to push past our own difficulties in order to reach out our hands and lives to those facing atrocities we cannot fathom.

Please read Fischer's quote in light of this very important reality.

Photo by OC Gonzalez on Unsplash