Another Reply

My dear Mr. Gardner, once again how good it is to hear from you! You continue to wrestle with important questions. Know that this thing called LIFE is meant to be difficult. Without sadness, what is joy? Without despair, what is hope? Without wandering, what is faith? Without fear, what is love? Without death, what is life? This life is but a shadow upon a shadow of what is to come. And after all what is the opposite of a shadow, the object from which it is cast, or the light which over powers it? Which is more real, shadow or light? Which over powers the other? If there exists a tension inside you, then be still! Sit with the tension. It is meant to teach you something. Examine it. Wrestle with it as you are. These struggles and tensions can be so very intense, but do not fear them. From them can come true love, true joy. All things have an opposite, but not all opposites are real.
When a tension arises ask yourself, does this seem to lie in shadow or does it have glimmers of that light for which all of us are searching, that light which brings hope, that light which calls us home? Again, life is difficult. But their is beauty in the difficulty. Is their not beauty in the way the noon sun breaks through the leaves of a tree? Is there not beauty in the swift, steady unending current of a river? Is there not beauty in all that is downright ordinary? If that is the case imagine the beauty that exists in the EXTRAORDINARY, that thing which none of us can quite grasp, that thing that evades, that answer to life? Look again at the that tension inside. Do you really know it? Is it sitting idly or is it like an old friend? If you do not acknowledge it, do not come to know it intimately, how can it possibly teach you anything?
Come to think of tension not as something to be feared, but as something that is SACRED. By existing in a state of tension, you are living. Tension brings about change. What is life without change? No matter how uncomfortable the tension makes you, you must confront it. Through the challenges tension brings, we are offered an opportunity to catch glimpses of things that are more real.
A wise author once wrote of characters who moved "further up and further in," who moved toward things that were more and more real. Wrestling with tension helps us to do just this. With the knowledge gained from the tension of one question, comes new questions and therefore new questions. But that is GROWTH, that is LIVING! Each question nourishes that seed deep inside which is the SOUL. Let the tension envelop you. Let it nourish and provide for you. Come to know it as a friend.