“Love. Buddha nature. Courage. These are code words for things we don’t know in our minds, but any of us could experience them. These are words that point to what life really is when we let things fall apart and let ourselves be nailed to the present moment.” -Pema Chodron
When your back is up
against the wall. When you
can’t talk your way out of it,
and the excuses that fall
from your mouth sound
weak even to you. When life
has nailed you, fixed you to this
present moment you have a choice:
to welcome the disappointment, failure,
embarrassment and grief with open
arms saying, “Welcome, friends,
what you have come to teach me?”
Or close your eyes, donning
the disguise of false surprise
and contrived outrage at how unfair
it all is. How could she do this
to you? What was he thinking?
Don’t they know who you are?
When I woke up, my leg
fixed and pinned under the
smashed in steering column,
my right arm bent at a sickening
angle, and no angel appearing,
I saw how life had nailed me,
fixed and wriggling, to this cold, still moment.
I tried to close to my eyes, pretend
that someone would rise up
and save me from the work.
But a deeper part of me knew
I was the one I waiting on- only me.
And slowly, painfully, I started to pull
my leg from the wreckage wrapped
round it pegging me to that place.
It took all night, but finally, in my
own time, I was free. Broken. But free.
When your back is up
against the wall. When you
can’t talk your way out of it,
and the excuses that fall
from your mouth sound
weak even to you. When life
has nailed you, fixed you to this
present moment- you have a choice:
to welcome the disappointment, failure,
embarrassment and grief with open
arms saying, “Welcome, friends,
what you have come to teach me?”
Or close your eyes, donning
the disguise of false surprise and
contrived outrage at how unfair
it all is. Things fall apart. The center
cannot hold. These are not punishments
from an angry God, but the gifts
that life presents- seasons to deepen
even we age and grow old.
