Dear Friends,
Today’s post is some thoughts on clichés that don’t hold up in the face of real life. There is more to be said about all of this, but this is what I’ve got today. In service of embracing imperfection, I offer it to you as it is.
Everything happens for a reason.
When God closes a door, he opens a window.
God won’t give you more than you can handle.
Life happens for you.
When life feels out of control, when life feels challenging, these are the kinds of things people tell us. We might even tell them to ourselves. I have.
These cliched phrases contain an element of truth. Their truth relies on the power of hindsight. Sometimes we can look back and find a thread that connected challenges in our lives that ultimately led us to an unexpectedly wonderful outcome. We might see that a closed door led to a new opportunity. We may marvel at the way support appeared to carry us through a hard time. We may see that those hard times were ultimately benevolent in the big scheme of things.
I think that we cling to these ideas because they make future meaning out of present chaos and uncertainty. If we just hang on long enough, we will see that the benevolent hand of destiny has always guided our path. Who wouldn’t want to believe this?
The problem is that it is not always true. We come up short when we are faced with experiences that can’t be reconciled with chirpy cliches. Often these experiences involve death, especially untimely death, and/or suffering. I don’t believe in redemptive suffering. To me, suffering is just suffering.
Since I have been living with metastatic cancer, I have been fortunate to not have people try to airbrush away my experience with their clichés. Many cancer folk are not so lucky. When cancer is happening to someone else, some people are tempted to insulate themselves through cliché, as if this inoculates them from a similar fate. Some try to reassure us of the possibility of miraculous healing. I don’t discount this possibility, but the simple reality is that most of us living with metastatic cancer will die as a result of cancer.
My own journey with cancer has had moments of connection and inspiration, with beloveds, with community, with the divine. But those moments don’t make grateful for cancer. There is no amount of hindsight that will make having cancer a good thing.
A friend who was also going through a really hard time gave me a sticker that I put on my phone case so that I see it often. It says, “relax, nothing is under control.” This is strangely comforting to me. It acknowledges that I don’t have to find redemption in my circumstances. I don’t have to find a reason or a window, I don’t have to justify a hard path. I don’t have to work so hard to find the why, the meaning behind a crappy diagnosis. I can relax; I don’t have to make the pieces fit.
Life can still be good in the face of hard times that may not have a happy ending. My life is good and full of beauty, right alongside the hard parts. And my life is better when I tell the truth of both the hard and the beautiful.
May the beauty outweigh the hard. But in any case, keep telling the truth.
Thanks for being here. Please share this post with folks who might be interested.
Lots of love,
Maija
Songs of the Week: For the times when you just want to relax and not try to figure it all out, I offer Let the Mystery Be by Iris Dement. This version is sung by 10,000 Maniacs. For the times when you want the comfort of the cycles of time as shown by the natural world, I offer The Handing Over Time by Carrie Newcomer.
Relax, Nothing is Under Control
Thank you for your honesty and for educating us. ❤️
I adore that version of "Let the Mystery Be"! Thank you for reminding me of it. ❤️