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| Salt (Public Domain) |
If you were to ask Mark Nepo where God is, he might not point heavenward. Instead, he has poetically answered:
…if you want to last, hold on to
nothing. If you want to know love, let in
everything. If you want to feel the presence of everything,
stop counting the things that break along the
way.
Nepo knows whereof he speaks. Having struggled with a rare form of lymphoma, he learned to experience life more fully in the moment while grappling with an unforeseeable future.
For pretty much all of us, the future is truly a mystery. Although a
condition like lymphoma can zap us into the present quite forcibly, we can all benefit from a deeper awareness of the life we already have.
How to do this when suffering from the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" is something that Nepo expertly teaches.
While a guest on Oprah Winfrey's Super
Soul Sunday show, Nepo told an ancient Hindu tale about the tasting of salt. If a teaspoon
of salt is placed within the average-sized glass, it will often taste unbearably strong. However, if that
same amount is placed in a lake, the taste would become imperceptible.
If salt symbolizes the very real suffering that each of us endures, then it can become "right-sized" by widening the container that holds it. Viewing life through a broad perspective that includes the wonders of this creation can thus help us to cope with the suffering that life inevitably entails.
Resources
http://www.marknepo.com/index.php
Copyright September 30, 2013 by Linda Van Slyke All Rights Reserved
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