A Pause

“We live between the act of awakening and the act of surrender. Each morning we awaken to the light and the invitation to a new day in the world of time: each night we surrender to the dark to be taken to play in the world of dreams where time is no more…Awakening and surrender: they frame each day and each life; between them the journey where anything can happen, the beauty and the frailty.” ~John O’Donohue

Recently I listened to meditation teacher Tara Brach speak of hope. She speaks of the difference between the kind of hope that is egoistic and tends toward being toxic. Hope that is tinged with expectation and with reward. If things go my way, I feel hopeful. I get what I want, there’s hope. My teens follow through on what I expect and desire, hope. The day lines up as I’ve carefully planned while I check the boxes off my to-do list and find time to communicate with friends and exercise, absolutely hope. The kind of hope that is really me feeling good about me getting my way.

Yet in any life there is such frailty. Frailty of ability. Frailty of time. Frailty in our lack of control and in all the ways we miss the mark through the day. Frailty in failing bodies and in failed decision making. How might there still be hope in all this frailty? Perhaps O’Donohue describes this as only a poet could—this frailty as that which lives with beauty; lives with the moments of coming alive, awake, and the moments of surrendering to all that reminds me and needs me to let go of expectation and fall into a story of trust in time’s unfolding.