The Other Side of a Hard Time
A sampling on long recoveries from my recent anniversary party
At my other Substack publication, Quiet Reading with Tara Penry, I hosted a virtual gathering recently in honor of a year of continuous newsletter writing. So many people participated that it’s easy for a reader to miss some essays they might enjoy. For this month’s PeaceLinks recommendations, therefore, I want to highlight a few folks from the anniversary gathering who have a common theme: living through hard times and making peace in the present.
If you’re new here, PeaceLinks is a monthly archive of links to anything online relating to peace, cooperation, or the middle ground. I typically choose a theme and more often than not focus on Substack newsletters, though occasionally I go foraging in other areas of the internet.
This month’s theme emerged as I read some authors new to me. Posts they had chosen to share had this theme of making peace in common. Here are a few:
Exhausted from a high-powered career that sapped her strength,
of discovered a childhood trauma in therapy. Her process of recovering professionally meant also facing her personal past:After writing about a parent with dementia,
of put out a request for people’s uplifting music memories. “Dementia patients may forget words,” she explained, “but they don't forget how something [like music] made them feel. Caregivers need uplifting stories; EVERYONE needs to be lifted up by meaningful moments.” She posted the responses to her call at “Music Memory Is More Powerful than Words”:Here at PeaceLinks, we generally keep it simple with a monthly collection of links about peace, cooperation, or the middle ground and minimal interference from me. To read my writing, you can hop over to Quiet Reading with Tara Penry.
I hope you enjoy the reading. See you back here on the third Friday of April!
Gosh Tara, Thank you!! We must have a telepathic link because I just sent out a follow-up request to 'Music Memories'! I appreciate the shout-out. Also, you've provided a perfect segue for another article, so I'll link back to this one. I love our link-ups! Gratitude and hugs!
Thanks, Tara for another thoughtful, thought provoking essay.
As you know from my switters.substack.com, I am ambivalent about whether my lifetime as a humanitarian aid worker was a net positive or a net negative. A painful reminder is the current events in Haiti, where I spent some of my prime years trying to make a difference.
After the 2010 earthquake and now with the present lawlessness, I am tempted to think it was wasted life. I have felt the same about other places I poured my heart and soul into: Yemen, South Sudan and other places that showed promise but fell back into violence and disarray. Did I waste my life chasing my good intentions?
I payed a hard personal cost for my commitment to do what I could to help build a better world. I have suffered and still suffer from painful memories, although I am learning to live again in the Light, and the pain gradually recedes. Recently, I undertook a 6 month journey up the Pacific Crest Trail in an effort to rekindle a vision of that beautiful world I always dreamed of helping to birth.
Day in and day out, there are conversations that run through my mind as I hike. Somehow, when the body is busy doing a task such as hiking, the mind is especially free to think about all the unfinished thoughts that get stacked around in the nooks and crannies of the brain. One of those unfinished thoughts is the question I started with: did my intentions and actions result in anything net positive? Was my life worth living?
Out on the trail, truth seems easier to come by than in the hustle-bustle of real life. The trail thoughts are black and white. Actions have immediate consequences. Regrets achieve nothing. Things are clearer. Truth is easier to pin down.
So what truth have I learned? Was my life a blessing or a curse? The trail has provided me an answer. Simply by showing up, I achieved something. Simply by saying yes to tasks, no matter how difficult or unpleasant is an achievement, and I faithfully said yes. This is the truth of the trail: if you don’t show up and begin putting one foot in front of the other, there is no hike and there is no progress. After a few hours and a few days, the scenery changes, the body strengthens, and one’s life is changed for the better, step by step.
I would judge myself too harshly if I don’t apply the same criteria for my career. Courage to face daunting challenges was simply a matter of placing one foot ahead of the other, and the way somehow always opened up before me. Along the way, I took others, often young idealistic workers, and mentored them. If what I achieved in life was x, there was a multiplier effect I didn’t often account for, but realize continues when I remember those I mentored and see their successes.
For all the pain and heartbreak, I can look back, after a few weeks on the trail, and say confidently that my life was not wasted and it continues to be good. I remember these things as I walk, one step at a time, this 18” wide, 2653 mile ribbon of truth from Mexico to Canada.
Life can be so unexpectedly beautiful and we deserve it to be so.