Regarding Sorrow

Sorrow is the garment, dark in color, luxuriant in texture and strangely comforting that envelops human experience.  It exposes itself to view when the circumstances warrant its appearance.  Sorrow is as natural as breathing.  It is a capitulation to the unmistakable reality of our fallibility and mortality.

Sorrow shows its appearance when arrogance and conceit are no longer relevant.  Sorrow gives permission for humility to enter center stage.  It is that feverish emotion that is so powerful that cracks appear in the visage that is normally presented to the outside world – it represents a formidable breach in the fortress of the personality.

Without sorrow we become shallow and pathetic creatures as lifeless as the inanimate objects we so meaningfully accumulate.  Without sorrow there can be no joy.  Without sorrow, the real becomes unapproachable and existence becomes a rather tiresome illusion.

The story of life encompasses the extraordinary presence of the reality when it also embraces sorrow.  Sorrow invariably speaks of loss and the acceptance of loss as a central characteristic of the passage through the finite corridor of the time allotted the individual life.  It is not possible to live full without embracing sorrow’s tangible presence.