As the years changed from 2014 to 2015, I was heard talking to many people about how i felt grateful to have 2014 behind us for it had been a tumultuous year and I was looking forward to 2015 bringing prosperity and joy and most of all a sense of the strength gathered through enduring the previous year's tribulation.
Among the people I talked to about this hopeful attitude was one woman. I don't recall who it was, only that she was a she. It's probably best that I don't remember specifically who whe was actually. For, the words "because 2014 was SO tumultuous," had hardly left my mouth and she interjected, "oh, just wait..." in an ominous tone. "What? No! What?" I exclaimed.
"Oh, there's some stuff coming yet," she added.
"What? No!" at the risk of repeating myself.
"Oh, yeah, 2015 has some stuff to show us. There're BIG troubles coming in 2015."
I started to ask what and how she knew this but was already overwelmed in my recovering from 2014's final episode and just didn't have it in me to hear the details of what was coming. Like a torture victim who had a chance to hear the final sentencing, I just would rather not know. It was enough that it was coming.
Well, we're six weeks into the new year and I've got to say, I wish I'd retained who it was that foreshadowed such troubles because I'd plant a big kiss on her cheek and invite her to have a cup of coffee (or glass of beer) and tell me what more she knows of this year. With great humility, I'd sit at her feet and learn. For this, so far has been not just for me, but for many friends and family an horrendously challenging year.
As I type this, I reallize tonight there isn't even a question of Fear. There is only a question of Why (?) Not "Why is this happening, oh god, this is horrible, why, why why?" But "Why?" capital "W." Where will I find the Why of what is happening. The meaning. How can so many people be experiencing such massive loss (all unrelated) and where is the meaning?
In a sense, Fear enters in because some people, myself sometimes counted among them, Fear there IS no reason, no lesson, no getting through this strengthened or wiser. Some days, there is only the raw pain and senselessness of suffering moment after moment, pain after pain.
So, I struggle to keep myself focused on gratitude some days, some moments. But even harder is helping those around me who suffer their own tumult in 2015 to keep faithful to gratitude or even simply hope. When my own world feels like jello, how can I tell someone else who just felt their own life shift dramatically that there IS anything firm to stand on?
THIS is the question: When ones own world feels like jello beneath their feet, how can she offer hope of anything firm to stand on, or even consulation, to another person who's world just fell from beneath their feet?
I don't know.
But with all my being, I know the path of hopelessness is the path of Fear. I know despair is the air one breathes walking that path.
And I know that as 2014 closed, the word given to me for the year 2015 was "Prosperity." At the time the word dropped into my head, I hadn't the slightest idea what the Universe could possibly mean, giving me such a word. I still haven't the slightest idea. These six weeks have tried me and have tried people close to me, people who are strong and good and wise. We have been tried to our very core, each in our own struggles. And I have no idea whatsoever as to the Universe's intension if there is such a thing. But, day by day, moment by moment, "prosperity" keeps me on the ride.
When my daughter was a young child, I enlisted my schooling in child development and adapted it to gain the understanding that every age brings it's challenges, EVERY age. AND every age brings it's blessings. EVERY age brings it's blessings. That creedo made parenting the wildest, most wonderful ride I could ever hope for. 2015 is just another year, another age. It has brought some doozy challenges already, and it WILL bring it's blessings. This is life. The Universe clamours for balance ... doesn't it?