{"id":2761,"date":"2014-11-10T13:35:07","date_gmt":"2014-11-10T18:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/fieldnotesonliving\/?p=2761"},"modified":"2014-11-10T13:35:07","modified_gmt":"2014-11-10T18:35:07","slug":"the-fifth-element","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/fieldnotesonliving\/2014\/11\/10\/the-fifth-element\/","title":{"rendered":"The Fifth Element"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

______________<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

THE FIFTH ELEMENT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our job is to stay thoroughly human, not to perfect our way out of it. I admit I\u2019ve lost years to refining myself when I\u2019ve needed to deepen myself. I admit I\u2019ve known the lift of the beatific ocean of Spirit and the crash of the world\u2019s great wave. And no matter what is taken away, I try to accept everything as a blessing. I try to put down my mask and sword and keep entering life. But I confess, when I was sick, I refused the teacher and the teacher made me sicker until I could hear. This is how I was forced to learn that experience is the fifth element\u2014insatiable and transforming as fire, clear and saturating as water, relentless and binding as earth, and necessary as air. Outliving those I love and outlasting things I\u2019ve built is how I\u2019ve been humbled to learn that grief is how we listen our way through loss. Opened, like a Russian nesting doll, to smaller and smaller shells I didn\u2019t know I was carrying, I\u2019ve been opened to the truth that obstacles are teachers and emergencies are rearrangers. Now I bless the wisdom in Rilke\u2019s line:<\/p>\n

The dove that remain(s) at home, <\/p>\n

never exposed to loss\u2026 <\/p>\n

cannot know tenderness\u2026<\/p>\n

A Question to Walk With: Describe one way that experience has revealed yourself to you.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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