Life is

Maybe I'm a little slow at this figuring out life-thing. Am I the only one who's just realizing that there's nothing new to be discovered about spirituality? What's new is old, and what's old is new again. Green is the new black, just like beige was the new black last season. Just like fashion, things just keep reinventing or renaming itself - just under a different name. I was reading Living Your Yoga, and there was a quote from the first line of Dr. Scott Peck's book the Road less Traveled, "Life is difficult". And, then, another book I picked up a few weeks ago, same quote. And, an article I read... more about suffering. (Gee, I'm reading some heavy stuff...) Ok, but really, what's the big deal here? So, I got the book. And, turns out, it was published in 78 (I was 7, most likely wearing bell bottoms with butterfly embroidery roller skating my way through my mom's smallish (but big as far as 70's middle class goes) house on Fairmeadow Drive in Texas on our newly tiled hallways, while my Mary Kay Director-single mom sent my older brother away to an all boys camp year-round where he was learning how to carve his name into cedar blocks, living in the woods, and singing "I'd like to buy the world a coke and peace and harmony"... so that my mom could find her peace and harmony. At least, that's how I remember it.)

Anyway, the book was on the NYTimes best seller list for over a decade and evidently had a profound impact on that generation. His idea of course, was not new. It came from the first of Buddha's "Four Noble Truths".

There's another "new" book out, the "Four Agreements", and even another follow up to his almost decade best seller, the "Fifth Agreement" which also talks about how we create needless suffering for ourselves.

Even in Christianity, the belief is that we are all sinners- that we must bear the cross and be willing to suffer for the sake of Christ. We're taught that if we just acknowledge that Christ is Lord of our life, that when we come to Him, He will forgive our sins, and we can live eternally with Him.

Sin and suffering, I feel are very different. However, both - and all views attempt to show us that it's possible to transcend the suffering. That joy, inner peace, freedom, is all possible, if we can just acknowledge and somehow accept that suffering... or as Peck simply put it to accept that "Life is difficult."

I'm not one for debating things, and do NOT want to go into a theological debate here. (Let me repeat, I hate debating theology, politics or anything sports-related. I have nothing to prove and feel no need to defend my beliefs.) I'm just on my own journey and the older and less wise that I get, (the more I know, the less I realize that I know-- is absolutely true in my case) the more I seem to be craving that relationship with God. And, the more I realize that He's in everyone- I simply have to look beyond everyone's personal history, their suffering, and realize they are just like me... only they might be a little ahead of me on the path or just behind. What's old is new again to those who've not heard or seen it.