SEPTEMBER 10
As I write this it sounds rather negative and hard but I do
not mean it to be so. Happiness grounded in reality is far
deeper than that built upon fantasy, and suffering teaches
one that happiness can catch a person unawares in the midst
of deprivation and desolation. There is a certain stripping
away of the externals which makes one more sensitive to joy
as well as to sorrow.
—SHEILA CASSIDYThese words were written by a physician reflecting on her
arrest and torture in Chile for treating a wounded revolu-
tionary. The circumstances are different, but her experience
of suffering as “stripping away of the externals” is akin to
ours.
Then how gracious seem the small gifts that may come—a
patch of sunlight on a cold floor, an unexpected gesture of
friendship, the fragrant steam of hot tea.
Poet Mary Jane Irion recalls grieving all night over a death,
and then
“in the terrible morning one of the neighbors brought
doughnuts so good I never forgot them.”A sense of taste and texture—and gratitude for friend-
ship—were only sharpened by grief.
In the midst of darkness there is light; in the midst of sorrow, joy.