And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
Interpretation
Embrace your feelings as a sign of being alive and connected to the beauty around you.
This quote highlights the importance of acknowledging and accepting the pain and confusion we experience in life as evidence of our humanity. The author reassures us that such feelings are natural and indicative of our capacity to appreciate the world's beauty, despite any external circumstances that might make us feel undeserving.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming life's challenges.
I was ravenous for my child and took to gorging myself in the boneyard, hoping that she might possibly meet me halfway, or just beyond, one night, if only for an instant—step back into her own bare feet, onto the wet grass or fallen leaves or snowy ground of the living Enon, so that we could share just one last human word.
There is my father whispering in my ear, Be still still still. And yet you change everything. What was the marsh like, waiting for the storm before you came and kneeled in the water? It was nothing. Watch after you leave the water, now cold and regretful, miles from home, certain of the belt on your backside, the cold shoulder, the extra chores; watch. Watch the water heal itself of your presence--not to repair injury but to offer itself again should you care to risk another strapping [...].
I hoped my absence made them happy or at least made them forget that they weren't happy and never will be.
As from a large heap of flowers many garlands and wreaths are made, so by a mortal in this life there is much good work to be done.
A fine genius in his own country is like gold in the mine.
What distracts us will begin to define us. We don't need to swing at every pitch.
A sentimentalist is one who delights to have high and devout emotions stirred whilst reading in an arm-chair, or in a prayer meeting, but he never translates his emotions into action. Consequently a sentimentalist is usually callous, self-centred and selfish, because the emotions he likes to have stirred do not cost him anything.
Iron till it be thoroughly heated is incapable to be wrought; so God sees good to cast some men into the furnace of affliction, and then beats them on His anvil into what frame He desires.
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