Life is a Gift

Time served two the gem of joy - 
Each on mirrored plate
One did hurry to capture the prize
The other thought to wait

Death saw naught but refracted light
and at its plate did hiss
Life instead cast aside the rock
​and gazed into the face of bliss

---

Picture two figures sitting at a restaurant table. Their server, Time, presents each figure with a gem of joy placed on a mirrored plate. The first figure leaps to grab the gem, while the second figure contemplates what to do.

Time served two the gem of joy -
Each on mirrored plate
One did hurry to capture the prize
The other thought to wait

In order to explain the next part of the poem, I'm going to give you a short physics lesson. Take a look at the spoon in the teacup below. See how the image of the spoon is distorted? The spoon appears to be in two pieces.

When light passes from one medium to another it refracts, which means it bends. The light producing the image of the spoon refracted when it passed from air into the tea, from the tea into the glass, and again when passing from glass into air. The result is the distorted.image.


Back to the poem.

Death saw naught but refracted light
and at its plate did hiss

The first figure, Death, grabs the gem to possess joy, but is disillusioned by the distorted image of joy produced by light refracting through the gem.

The second figure, Life, sees that the gem is just an illusion of joy, tosses it away.and looks at it's own reflection in the mirrored plate.

Life instead cast aside the rock
and gazed into the face of bliss.

What does Life see? Bliss.

Why?

I'll tell you a story about me. There was a time in my life that I was in so much emotional pain and had been for so long that I wanted a divorce from my life.I could not remember a time when I was not in pain, and I could not imagine life without it.

Emily Dickinson captures this experience exquisitely in this poem:

Pain has an Element of Blank -
It cannot recollect
When it begun - or if there were
A time when it was not -

It has no future - but itself -
Its Infinite contain
Its Past -enlightened to perceive
New Periods of Pain

Ending my life looked good to me. I believed death would end the pain and replace it with the joy of being in heaven.

Why didn't I kill myself? I don't know, but I'm glad I didn't.

I did the hard work of healing, which enabled me to understand that even the worst pain has purpose and ultimately leads to joy. 

Kahlil Gibran is his book "The Prophet" says this of pain:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy; And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields. And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
What's the message here?

Life, taken as a whole, is a gift of bliss no matter what circumstance it puts me in. 

I will not tell you that there are no circumstances I fear to experience. I can easily imagine circumstances that would reduce what I perceive to be quality of life to a point where I could see neither purpose nor joy.

My hope is that I would get out my electron microscope if need be to find the purpose and joy that my poem promises is there.

What about you?

Have you ever been in so much emotional pain that you wanted to die?

Could you not imagine an end to the pain or a future that could possibly be worth feeling it?

How did you get through it?

What did you learn about yourself, about life?

Write to me. I'd love to hear your story.

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