Neither I, nor you, nor anyone else knows what the future holds. At times it can seem as if we can predict or anticipate the future but the future never loses its capacity to surprise us. What we see happening around us is life in all its glory, its struggles, its possibilities, its challenges, its gifts - unfolding into the human drama of daily living. We will all like to pick what we consider as flowers and set aside what we think of as thorns. However, the wise know that the thorn is no different from the flower it protects just as the flower is the same as the thorn that it makes bearable.
I do not know what today has been like for you nor can I tell what tomorrow will be like - for you, for me, for any of us. Much of life, like an iceberg, stays hidden from our view. What we see is but a small part of it. We do not know the bigger picture, we do not understand the greater connections and complexities and hence our confusion and hence the need for faith in face of adversity and even otherwise. Faith acknowledges our ignorance and reinforces our trust in availability of grace and guidance through the trying and tiring days of our journey.
No one knows how long or short a life is - neither of another nor our own. Any moment as we know it could be our last. We do not have much say in how long our life will be or should be.
It is then of great import and of immense urgency that we be able to free our hearts of all fear, of all prejudice, of all insecurity and embrace the present and make it come alive in love, in celebration. To not spend the days of our life mired in trepidation but instead attend to them totally and completely by smiling within and without, by anchoring our hearts in love and compassion, by holding on tightly to our faith and never letting go, by sharing the burden of our fellow travelers, by having a conversation with a stranger out of genuine care and concern, to attend to our struggles and still have much room to assist another make it through their day with vigor and triumph.
We must not let anything undermine our faith. Faith is not weak, faith is not passive. Faith is fierce, faith can fight, faith can challenge and transmute fate itself. Faith is not hope. Faith is not desire for a certain outcome. Faith is the confidence and conviction in one's ability to stoically get through anything and everything that the day might present, that life may put forward. Faith is our inner strength. Faith is the smile in a dark night. Faith is the courage to put the next foot forward in spite of pain, in spite of sorrow, in spite of suffering. Faith is the resolve to be a light, to be love, to be of service to one and to all. Faith is the trust that no matter what comes or what goes, our ability to smile, to love, and to serve is always within and is always available.
May all of us, throughout our lives, be blessed with the grace and the good fortune to have the courage and the capacity to wipe every tear that we can, bring as many smiles as we can, and serve with all of our heart and mind as much as we can.
