Everything terrible is something that needs our love.
Interpretation
Embracing pain and hardship with compassion can transform our experience and those around us.
Rainer Maria Rilke's quote suggests that even the most difficult and unfortunate aspects of life are in need of our love and attention. By acknowledging and embracing these challenges, we can cultivate a deeper sense of empathy, understanding, and connection to the world, ultimately fostering healing and transformation in ourselves and in others.
In practice
To comfort a friend who is going through a tough time, I shared Rainer Maria Rilke's wisdom on loving our challenges.
Spring has again returned. _x000D_ _x000D_ The Earth is like a child that knows many poems._x000D_ _x000D_ Many, O so many. For the hardship_x000D_ _x000D_ of such long learning she receives the prize._x000D_ _x000D_ _x000D_ Strict was her teacher. _x000D_ _x000D_ The white in the old man's beard pleases us._x000D_ _x000D_ Now, what to call green, to call blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ we dare to ask: She knows, She knows!
Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
a good marriage is that in which each appoints the other guardian of his solitude
He reproduced himself with so much humble objectivity, with the unquestioning, matter of fact interest of a dog who sees himself in a mirror and thinks: there's another dog.
The only journey is the one within.
And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been
When I think of the love I feel for each member of our family, I sense, to a slight degree, the love that our Heavenly Father bears for His children.
No rival will steal away my sure love; that glory will be my gray hair.
Only in truth does charity shine forth, only in truth can charity be authentically lived. Truth is the light that gives meaning and value to charity. That light is both the light of reason and the light of faith, through which the intellect attains to the natural and supernatural truth of charity: it grasps its meaning as gift, acceptance, and communion. Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way.
But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you.
...for, however all other feelings may be withered in a woman's nature, there is always one bright smiling spot in the maternal breast, and that is where a dearly-beloved child is concerned.
No sacrifice which a lover would make for his beloved is too great for us to make for our enemy.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.