Chrysalis
Can suffering be interpreted through a different lens?
To watch you suffer rips my heart into a million pieces.
I am overwhelmed by the weight of helplessness.
Restrained in a windowless room,
I can offer you no relief.
I bounce from wall to wall to wall
I pound on the doors
pleading with a higher power to intervene.
How do I make sense of this?
As goodness goes,
there are none like you.
This world has its share of the greedy, the hate-filled, and the graceless,
but you are not them.
You shine like the stars on a clear night
Your radiance and grace inspire
Your selfless acts humbling
Your presence soft and soothing
Always, always you were there.
Oh, your suffering makes no sense to me.
Am I in a world where up is down and down is up
or has it always been this way?
Has my perception been wrong?
I thought up was up, but has it always been down?
Is that why this makes no sense?
Maybe I know nothing at all
Maybe I never did
The illusion is that I told myself I knew how things should be,
but I don’t
What I do know is that there is a part of this world we do not see.
We are gifted glimpses of its beauty, its peace, its wisdom throughout our lifetime.
Although it is not fully understood, it is always present
When we connect with it, our perceptions of the world change.
Is there another way to see your suffering then?
Like the unseen metamorphosis inside a chrysalis,
things change inside its body to make the caterpillar into a butterfly,
into wholeness
Is the chrysalis that is your body with the ever-present wisdom of the unseen making you whole?
Is it making you whole in a way we don’t yet understand?
