The Battle within Living

I just want to be living as I'm dying, Just like everybody here, Just want to know my little flicker of time is worthwhile, And I don't know where I'm driving to, But I know I'm getting old And there's a blessing in every moment every mile Vienna Teng - Homecoming (Walter's Song) youtube

I've been listening to some more Vienna Teng and in juxta position with Salvador Dali's image entitled Warrior mounted on an Elephant Overpowering a Cello. Life pierces me and the living continues to be a struggle but yet there is blessing in the moments. It is this that I bring to others in their struggles. Not cheap words , not quick fixes, no papering over pain. Yet I can still sit in the shadow of it all and I can still find a graced moment. Don't we long for more. This reminds me of a story from the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The Venerable Bede records an account of an allegory told to a pagan king to explain the transitory nature of life:

The present life of man, O King, seems to be, in comparison with that time which is unknown to us, like the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein You sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are entirely ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.

Life can seem transitory and short lived, but at many moments interminably long. Nights without sleep endless. Nights alone...

Well the night eats up my body heat, And there's no sign of another, And I find myself slipping down into that black, But things are good I've got a lot of followers of my faith, I've got a whole congregation living in my head these days, And I'm preaching from the pulpit, To cries of "Amen brother", Closing my eyes to feel the warmth come back Vienna Teng - Homecoming (Walter's Song) lyrics

From the The Cloud of Unknowing which I read quite a few years ago,

My thoughts cannot comprehend Divinity, and so I prefer to abandon all I can know, choosing rather to love even that which I cannot know.

Let loving desire, gracious and devout, step bravely and joyfully beyond and reach out to pierce the darkness. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what may."

La ténèbre n'est point ténèbre devant Toi. La nuit comme le jour est lumière. Ps 139