Grace And Conviction
What is the shame in folding? You knew the hand you were dealt would need work, and the work hasn't been up to par. Yet you continue to believe that a little more effort will make everything ok. It is not failure, Emily, to take yourself out of a situation that makes you miserable. It is not failure to have the feelings that you have.
No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity.
They kill you, cut you with knives, shower you with curses. And that somehow cuts your mind off from clearness, and sanity, and self-control, and justice?
A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained.
To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring.
How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Through patience, honesty, humility.
To have been born into the family that I have. To have a father that, without being provoked, says that they will support me whatever I choose, and to know that he absolutely means it. Libby, and the strength of her conviction even in the face of a moron jabbing her with spikes for her decision. To have made a decision, and to stand by it because you know that it's right and because you are strong enough to do the right thing for yourself. Anne and the light that she casts upon everyone, every situation. To be that strong. To know that resolutely what life is, to laugh at a challenge, to be grateful for the opportunity to show your quality.
It is time, I think, to become strong at the broken places. Clarity of thought, forward momentum.
No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to escape it. No overactivity.
They kill you, cut you with knives, shower you with curses. And that somehow cuts your mind off from clearness, and sanity, and self-control, and justice?
A man standing by a spring of clear, sweet water and cursing it. While the fresh water keeps on bubbling up. He can shovel mud into it, or dung, and the stream will carry it away, wash itself clean, remain unstained.
To have that. Not a cistern but a perpetual spring.
How? By working to win your freedom. Hour by hour. Through patience, honesty, humility.
To have been born into the family that I have. To have a father that, without being provoked, says that they will support me whatever I choose, and to know that he absolutely means it. Libby, and the strength of her conviction even in the face of a moron jabbing her with spikes for her decision. To have made a decision, and to stand by it because you know that it's right and because you are strong enough to do the right thing for yourself. Anne and the light that she casts upon everyone, every situation. To be that strong. To know that resolutely what life is, to laugh at a challenge, to be grateful for the opportunity to show your quality.
It is time, I think, to become strong at the broken places. Clarity of thought, forward momentum.
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