just some thoughts.

"There is always something left to love. [. . .] Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well, then, you ain't through learning--because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he came through before he got to wherever he is." --A Raisin in the Sun 

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I've been doing a lot of reading this summer.
Reading, writing, and thinking.
And although right now is not the time nor place to recap or analyze what all of this reading and writing,
pondering and thinking has done for me,
I think it is safe to say
that a lot of it has to do with love.
Real love.
The kind that heals and changes.
And I am learning
that just like a soft heart
can turn to stone
a stony heart
can become soft again.

Reality stings.
There's no doubt about that.
Life is hard.
It was meant to be.
However, even though life is hard and reality does sting,
I do hope that I never become
"so aware of 'reality' that I am unresponsive to the whisperings of heaven."

We have to want a softened heart.
But before that, we have to realize that we need it.
And then want it.
Because it's not easy to want it.
It is not easy for a stony heart
to become soft again.
It hurts.
It's painful.
Like that scene from Voyage of the Dawn Treader 
where Aslan peels off Eustace's dragon skin.
It hurts to become human again.
To allow yourself to feel again.
But those soft hearts
are much more prone
to "measure a person right"
and see things as they really are.

But it's hard
because so often we want to be right.
We want our opinions,
our comments,
our stereotypes,
our paradigms--
we want all of them to be right.
We want to be right.
The heroes.
The protagonists.
Or perhaps the victims.
Everyone else must be wrong.
Or at least not properly informed.

We are so resistant to change
when that change means changing ourselves.

But choosing to be an agent
free to act for herself
and realizing that I don't have all the answers--
nor am I right all the time--
is liberating.
Not that I am perfect at it.
And part of me knows that it will be something
I have to relearn again and again.
But I do believe this.
That being an agent to act
is so much better than being acted upon.

So yes.
This summer I have read.
And I have let it change me.
If just a little bit.
Because I am trying to apply.
It's always the application that is the trickiest.
"How is it done?"
And how do I get it from my head to my heart?
Measure him right, child. Measure him right. 

Account for the hills and valleys.
Including your own.
Because really.
We're all just children.
A long way from home.