Beyond What Goes Wrong, Episode 22
In this episode from 4th March 2018 Lizzie and Justin talk about what's beyond 'what goes wrong'. We discuss how we might see, when we're in the midst of difficulty, that's it's really part of us that's caught up in the difficulty. And, even though we often know ourselves most readily as this part (which gives our lives familiarity, a role to play, something to to), to be human is also to be a kind of depth that's beyond the immediacy of our experience, however troubling or delightful that experience is to us.
Along the way we encounter the possibility that one path to more fully inhabiting our lives comes from being with others who can know and welcome our depth and, in turn, learning the gift of recognising the depth in others as we find it in ourselves.
Beyond What Goes Wrong
With each passing [and passage], there is a further wearing away of the layers or coverings that obscure our essential selves. And so, as we say “goodbye” again and again, we feel thinner, narrower more naked, more transparent, more vulnerable in a palpable, holy way.
– Elesa Commerse
When in the middle of difficulty, it's easy to paint the whole world as difficult. When in pain, it’s easy to construct a worldview of pain. When lonely, it’s easy to subscribe to an alienating philosophy of existence. Then we spend hours and even years seeking to confirm the difficult existence we know. Or we rebound the other way, insisting on a much lighter, giving world, if we could only transcend the difficulties that surround us. Life has taught me that neither extreme is helpful, though I’ve spent many good hours lingering in each. Instead, I think we're asked to face what we’re given, no matter how difficult, and to accept that life is always more than the moment we find ourselves in. In every instance, there’s the truth of what we’re going through and the resource of a larger, more enduring truth that’s always present beyond what goes wrong.
Ultimately, it’s the enduring truth that helps us through.
– Mark Nepo, from Things That Join The Sea and The Sky
Photo by Tom van Hoogstraten on Unsplash