The Gift of Presence

I like being active and doing things and helping people (usually) and solving problems (always).

But sometimes things can't be fixed, for one reason or another. That is difficult for me to handle.

In the past few months, I have been hearing over and over, and slowly grasping, the profound value of presence. Often, simply BEING THERE is the best gift possible.

When there are no words or solutions or even identifiable problems, reality is made bearable when someone else is there. When they say, "I love you." or "I'm really sad about this too." or "I wish I could fix this. I can't. But I'm not going anywhere," it validates that yes, life is crap, things are broken, I don't understand it either, but you are not alone.

Often, that is the one thing that keeps us together and gives us hope.

And WHO KNOWS how any of this messiness will turn out? I certainly don't. But I'm along for the ride, and when sorrow gives way to celebration (I believe it always can, eventually), we are going to par-tay.

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Simone Weil: On "Forms of the Implicit Love of God"

Simone Weil time again! One of the essays in Waiting for God is entitled "Forms of the Implicit Love of God." Her main argument is that before a soul has "direct contact" with God, there are three types of love that are implicitly the love of God, though they seem to have a different explicit object. That is, in loving X, you are really loving Y. (in this case, Y = God). As for the X of the equation, she lists: Love of neighbor Love of the beauty of the world Love of religious practices and a special sidebar to Friendship “Each has the virtue of a sacrament,” she writes. Each of these loves is something to be respected, honoured, and understood both symbolically and concretely. On each page of this essay, I found myself underlining profound, challenging, and thought-provoking words. There's so much to consider that I've gone back several times, mulling it over and wondering how my life would look if I truly believed even half of these thin

I Like to Keep My Issues Drawn

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Esse - Czeslaw Milosz

I'm on a bit of a poetry binge this week, and Monday afternoon found me lying on the luxurious shag rug of a friend's tiny apartment, re-reading some of my favourite poets (ee cummings, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz). It is an adventure to re-open a collection and wonder what will pop out, knowing something you've read before will strike you afresh, or you will be reminded of a particularly moving line that you had somehow forgotten. Like this piece from Milosz, which floors me. Every. damn.* time. The first time I read it, I lay in a park with a friend (this same friend who offered me her rug as my reading burrow) and demanded that I share it with her. I spoke it carefully, and then, into the post-reading silence, I slammed the book shut, and dropped it as loudly as I could onto the grass. "I'm never reading anything again," I declared, "What else is there to say?" Esse I looked at that face, dumbfounded. The lights of métro st

* not with ink

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