The Paths of Sorrow

There is a fatigue that exists beyond the physical, when the mind and heart begin to realize that the pain will not be going away with any speed, that things will not be better tomorrow, or the next day, and maybe not even the day after that.

We begin to settle onto the path that is mourning and we walk more slowly because we now understand that there is no rushing off of this road. We may not be walking alone, but we begin to see that in some deep way, even with God, our families and communities beside us, we are utterly alone with our pain.

We keep walking, because we must, because as far away as it seems, there is a place on this path where the pain melts into compassion, where emptiness invites unity, where tears becomes less for our pain and more for the pain of others.

Those who submit to the path of sorrow and enter freely into the deep places of pain become people who are acquainted with the deep. It is in the deep that God's face is most clearly seen, in the deep where joy resides, in the deep where life is found.