ON JOY AND SORROW

 

Acquainted with Grief by Jenedy Paige

“He wept – He who had descended below all things, the Man of Sorrows, He who bore all our griefs. The heights of His infinite capacity for joy is the inverse, mirror image of the depth of His capacity to bear our burdens.

“So it is with the enlarged caverns of feeling within our own hearts; as the sorrows of our lives carve and stretch those caverns, they expand our soul’s capacity for joy. Then, when the Man of Sorrows turns our bitter tastes to sweet, our joy – and His – will fill the widened chambers of our hearts with what the scriptures call ‘fulness’. That is when we have accepted His Atonement and love with such completeness that His purpose for us is fully satisfied.

“Then will we know that we were made for this. Then will we know where, and why, and to whom, we belong. “For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with gladness (Psalm 107:9).

-          Bruce C. Hafen, “The Belonging Heart”, p 315) 

KAHLIL GIBRAN ON JOY AND SORROW:

Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.

And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow”, and others say, “Nay, sorrow is greater.” But I say to you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily, you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise to fall.

-          Kahlil Gibran, “The Prophet – A Timeless Masterpiece”

 

ON CHILDREN

 

Joyful Teachings by Ivan Guaderrama

ON CHILDREN:

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children. And he said:

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer’s hand be for gladness; for even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

-          Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet – A Timeless Masterpiece

Come to me, O ye children!

For I hear you at your play,

And the questions that perplexed me

Have vanished quite away.

 

Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun,

Where thoughts are singing swallows

And the brooks of morning run.

 

In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,

In your thoughts the brooklet’s flow,

But in mine is the wind of Autumn

And the first fall of the snow.

 

Ah! What would the world be to us

If the children were no more?

We should dread the desert behind us

Worse than the dark before.

 

What the leaves are to the forest,

With light and air for food,

Ere their sweet and tender juices

Have been hardened into wood –

 

That to the world are children;

Through them it feels the glow

Of a brighter and sunnier climate

That reaches the trunks below.

 

Come to me, O ye children!

And whisper in my ear

What the birds and the winds are singing

In your sunny atmosphere.

 

For what are all our contrivings,

And the wisdom of our books,

When compared with your caresses,

And the gladness of your looks?

 

Ye are better than all the ballads

That ever were sung or said;

For ye are living poems,

And all the rest are dead.

 

-          Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

KAHLIL GIBRAN ON PAIN

The Master Potter by Paige Payne

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your 

understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart 

may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily

miracles of your life,

your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart, 

even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the winters

of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you

heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in

silence and tranquility;

For his hand, though heavy and hard,

is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been

fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His

own sacred tears.

- Kahlil Gibran