SWEET SADNESS

     Sometimes I find the very experience of living to be sad, but in a sweet and beautiful kind of way. There is so much hurt and misunderstanding and judgment and carelessness, and all in the same mix as nobility and grace. As humans, we can be so reckless, so clumsy, so fragile, and yet we are capable of the highest acts of kindness and such big love. It's the juxtaposition of the two that I find sad and beautiful all at once.
     If we tune into it, there is a shadow of pain in each of us, even in our happiest moments; the scars of past wrongdoings, the disappointments, the woundings. And the earth feels that way to me also, scathing and polluted with man's mistakes and abandoned dreams. But there is a beauty in our errors and our imperfections. There is camaraderie and a way to relate. There is the echo of human limitations reverberating over the earth like a base guitar, or a frame drum. And it is not horrible or scary, but rhythmic and humming, comforting, the vibrational energy of effort expended and if-at-first-you-don't-succeed.
     I am aware of my own hurt and the hurts of those I love. The sadness I feel for these inevitable hurts is braided with understanding and a soft kind of light. But there's enough hurt in the world already to last forever and onwards. I don't need to contribute to it, and I don't want to. I want to spread kindness and my own kind of joy. I want to be an instrument of healing and love. I want peace and am willing to be peaceful, but I am also willing to experience the sweet deep sadness of the human condition. It's all of it that makes it whole, after all, and not the easy parts only.

I choose to be kind and spread joy. There is enough hurt and suffering on earth without my adding to it. I commit to do no harm.