“The ability to ask beautiful questions – often in very unbeautiful moments – is one of the great disciplines of a human life. And a beautiful question starts to share your identify as much by asking it as it does by having it answered.” David Whyte
Watershed moments are often, in my experience, unbeautiful moments.
Rather, they can be brutally hard. The moments that bring us to our knees. That break open our hearts – not break but break them open to a new place.
As a funeral celebrant, I am frequently with families in these brutally hard, unbeautiful moments. The unthinkable has happened and the celebration of a life is just the beginning. While some believe the funeral is a place for closure, I find it to be more like a threshold for a new beginning. The place where loved ones start learning about their life in a new way. The threshold that connects both identity and difficult questions. The unthinkable bringing with it never-before considered questions. It becomes a call to connect with one’s identity.
It is in the days and weeks after, in the aftermath of any loss – not just a death loss – that we begin to regroup and watch for the beauty. While it may seem for a time that the light has gone out of the world, the truth is it has not. Beauty remains. It is up to us to begin looking for it. Even if at the beginning it seems like just a glimpse.
One wild and precious life.
Funerals have a way of making us all think about our own mortality, too. A poem I love by Mary Oliver asks the beautiful question- “…tell me what it is you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” The unthinkable has happened. Looking at our own inner life, thinking about the future that perhaps has changed shape entirely, reflecting, praying and telling stories are all ways to tap into the beauty in an unbeautiful season. Look closely there for the next right step. Trust that even in the most unbeautiful moments there can also be beautiful possibilities.
Perhaps you are finding yourself in the midst of unbeautiful moments.
Remind yourself that this is a season, not your whole story. And even in the hard you find yourself in, you get to consider what is most important to you.
What dreams do you still hold? What new dreams are coming to your imagination? Stay curious…what makes your heart sing, right now? Follow that!
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