Struggles whether for a group of people or for us individually, is part of the human
condition as the Buddha observed 3000 years ago. Struggle born of not having enough, struggle
born of worrying about the future, struggle born of disease and heartache. Struggle is real but it is not the totality
of our existence. Struggle is the gate we pass through in order to make
ourselves anew. I think too often we see
our future as the gate itself instead of what lies beyond it.
Anne LaMotte put it this
way: “Hope begins in the dark, the
stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn
will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”
You wait and you watch and
you don’t give up. That’s what moving beyond the gate of struggle looks
like. Last week the Los Angeles City
Council increased the minimum wage for hotel workers to $15.37 an hour, the
highest in the country. You think that
just happened? Nope. That was the result of thousands of people
storming the gates of struggle to get to the other side.
There is always another side to struggle. With a little stubborn hope we will get there.
With Grace and Grit, John
