Dear Pneuma,

Suffering has been on my mind.  Doubt has been in my spirit.  Anger has been in my heart.  I suffer the illnesses of entitlement.  I am ashamed.

In the endless eternal ocean of life and lives, I am very small.  When I go down to die, billions of people will never know that I lived.  Space will swallow whatever ripples my physicality caused.  My loves and hates, my failures and successes, my born-ing and my dying will diffuse and dissipate in the currents of time.

Truth.

Yet, what did I do to deserve life in the first place?  What am I that I was given such a gift as this: a being for living, for breathing, for loving, for hating, for helping, for hurting, for hoping, for caring, for losing, for dying?  Was I accidental, or was I inevitable?  

I live.  Why then do I cry for the bumps and scratches?

I breathe.  Why then do I fear loss and consequence?

I trust.  What is eternal in my material prosperity?

I hope.  What is eternal in my poverty?

I try. What is eternal in my triumph?

I change. What is eternal in my fall?

To be human is to drink the full cup of suffering and death, but to be human is also to share bread and drink the full cup of life.  If I choose to refuse the one cup, I refuse the other.

I am ashamed that I often choose my own voice of wanting over the counsel of peace.  May I remember whose I am.

Contrite,
Cobalt Dreams