The Intimate Experience
Every bit of life is touched by good and bad, light and dark.
photo by David E. Marlow
It was a surprisingly cold day yesterday.
Mixed with a bit of color and sunshine, this picture seems the perfect visual metaphor for a reflection by Henri Nouwen.
“Our life is a short time in expectation, a time in which sadness and joy kiss each other at every moment.
There is a quality of sadness that pervades all the moments of our lives. It seems that there is no such thing as a clear-cut pure joy, but that even in the most happy moments of our existence, we sense a tinge of sadness.
In every satisfaction, there is an awareness of limitations. In every success, there is the fear of jealousy. Behind every smile, there is a tear. In every embrace, there is loneliness. In every friendship, distance. And in all forms of light, there is the knowledge of surrounding darkness . . .
But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence. It can do so by making us look forward in expectation to the day when our hearts will be filled with perfect joy, a joy that no one shall take away from us.”
Henri Nouwen
🌀 What are your thoughts as you read this?
🌱 What does it mean that sadness and joy kiss each moment in our lives?
🌱 What about the other paradoxes he lists?
🌱 how does this apply to the ‘harmony’ of Ikigai?
Light and darkness are one, they coexist and we cannot have one without knowing the other.