“A tree with strong roots can weather any storm. If you have not done so already, the day to start growing those roots is today. Gratitude, respect, and discipline are three powerful ways to ground and nurture your relationships. But keep in mind also, that trees sway in the wind. They are not rigid. Even the largest and strongest trees sway when the wind blows. Allow for uncertainty; you can be sure it will come. Find the lesson in the unexpected; it has come to help you in your quest to become-the-best-version-of-yourself. Try to enjoy mystery; it will keep you young.
The present culture despises uncertainty, and so we waste endless amounts of time and energy trying to create the illusion of security and attempting to control the uncontrollable. We curse the unexpected because it interferes with our plans, even though it often carries with it the challenge we need at that moment to change and grow into a-better-version-of-ourselves. In the same way, our culture has no time for mystery. If we cannot solve or prove it, then we ignore it or discredit it.
“Life is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived,” wrote Kierkegaard. Your spouse is not a problem to be solved, your children are not problems to be solved, your boyfriend or girlfriend, your partner or fiance is not a problem to be solved. They are mysteries to be accepted, encouraged, experienced, and enjoyed.
Relationships are not to be understood and fixed and solved; they too, are mysteries to be enjoyed.
The best participants in the mystery we call relationship seem to be people who don’t need to understand everything, the ones who aren’t out to prove anything, those humble enough to accept when they are wrong and hold their tongues when they are right, the people who don’t have an agenda, who aren’t in a hurry, and who don’t need the credit when things go right and don’t pass the blame when things go wrong.
Those are the rare souls who seem to be able to hold their arms wide open and embrace fully the mystery of loving and the joy of being loved.”
So roots, storms, uncertainties, and mysteries are to be enjoyed? Really now? The above was taken from page 67 in Matthew Kelly’s book “The Seven Levels of Intimacy: The Art of Loving and the Joy of Being Loved.” With God’s empowerment, may we each someday be one those able to hold our arms wide open and embrace fully the mystery of loving and the joy of being loved. Sweet indeed!!