Love Takes All Things Into Account

I knew a man once who was a great mentor to me. He taught me everything he knew, he was patient with me, believed in me and never made me suffer my mistakes but simply helped me clean them up. When he died I learned that he had some very serious problems. Things he was involved in had very likely hurt people in a deep and lasting way. I could not reconcile what I knew of him with what I learned about him. I wanted to reject him outright and find fault in all that he had ever said or done. As much as I wanted to I could not. Instead, I had to accept that a person is made up of multiple facets, some that shine with the brightest spark and others that cast doom on all the world. I had to accept that there were parts of him for which I had no respect and parts to which I owed a lifetime debt of gratitude. And even all parts considered, I realized I still loved him and always would.

Learning that I could do that for him brought me closer to believing that, just maybe, I can do it for myself.

Pain's Spark

This is something I wrote after eavesdropping on a coversation about Stacey K. Black's screenblack.

Q-“How do you know that someone is in pain just by looking into their eyes?”

A-“You might think that when you look into the eyes of someone who is in pain you would see nothing, just an empty darkness in a space where all light has been extinguished by this evil life. But that’s not true because where there’s pain there’s actually hope. Without the hope it wouldn’t hurt anymore. Pain is the consequence of hope during times when your dreams won’t come true.

So when you look into the eyes of pain, what you actually see is that spark of hope. A fragile floating ember, blowing on the wind, just waiting to touch down someplace where there is something, anything, that might be ignited if fanned by even the slightest breath of love or goodness.

So that’s how I know…I see that spark.”