What Sustains Us?
A simple meal, a moment of rest, a kind word, a heartfelt prayer. What sustains us? Sometimes sustenance merely keeps us going through the day, a way to string the moments like a rosary and reach a satisfying type of conclusion. But sometimes sustenance must pierce more deeply and bolster more strongly to fortify in times of crisis and despair. Can the same modest items and actions achieve both purposes?
There are Always Good Parts
In the short story Sanctuary by Christiane Buuck, a young harried housewife and unappreciated mother does all the caregiving for her selfish husband, her addled grandfather and her two toddler children, with a third on the way. She lives in Lourdes, France side by side with miracles for visiting pilgrims, though her own life seems completely lacking in wonder. What sustains her? A short solo visit with her aged Grande-Tante and Oncle where she is cherished, fed, and allowed to rest “in a bed she had not made herself” reframes her sadness and she learns from them if there are no miracles, “there are always good parts. Always.” When she returns home to an empty train platform, with no husband waiting, she is confronted by the cold reality of her life. Still she has gained the ability to consider alternative endings, to see some good parts, and to help sustain others, rather than close up in bitterness.
Reminders of what it means to live
Finding these “glimmers” is reinforced in the essay Sinking into What Sustains Us by Rudri Bhatt Patel. The acknowledgment that life’s moments of joy are always juxtaposed with sadness and that “time is the ultimate currency,” urges us to find the goodness wherever possible. That is what keeps us going from mundane day to day and in times of struggle and duress. Miracles are sometimes of our own making through the simple “effort to pay attention and identify these flickers.”
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