Guest Posts

You Can Imagine…Guest post by Emily Rapp

March 13, 2012

You Can Imagine…Guest post by Emily Rapp on my sister Rachel’s blog!

Emily is a dear friend and you probably have heard me talk about her by now. Her son Ronan, who is almost two, has the fatal Tay-Sachs Disease.

Click here to read this gorgeous essay on the 3 Words For 365 blog!

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1 Comment

  • Reply jamesvincentknowles March 13, 2012 at 4:40 pm

    It’s difficult to form words of empathy and compassion without reference to one’s self … the words “i, me, my, etcetera,” yet it is the paradoxical nature of life, wherein evidence exists all around us we are all connected. Why else would another’s caring, sympathy, empathy and compassion make any difference in our own lives?

    Indifference is, it seems, where we find the value of empathy and compassion. Your pain may not be my pain, but i do know pain. And because i do know it, i am capable of understanding the value of empathy and caring. I know the emptiness of indifference. It is the same pain we cause ourselves by rushing through life, day after day, year after year, without stopping to investigate the garden. Any garden. Just imagine someone pulling over to the side of the road rather than rushing to get to that all important destination, stopping to spend a few minutes enjoying something as simple as flowers in someone’s front yard, a park, along the side of the road. Stopping to catch that first breath, to inhale the moment, to observe up close the colors blending, to pause and allow imagination to wander. Right there, anywhere, where indifference ends, and life abounds.

    Weird thought, huh? Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? We know we can do, but few of us ever actually do-do. haha. . . “doo doo”~!

    What I’m really trying to say is, I can indeed imagine what you’re going through, Emily. Reading your post, it is very much like stopping in traffic, halting the rushing hurry of meaninglessness and pulling over to peer into someone’s garden. Therein i find the beauty of mystery, the paradox of life fully lived in love and the fear of losing the joy brought about by the courage that requires. Most of all, i notice my own heart beats without breaking, though it is skipping a bit as i read & feel your love pouring forth, and as it does so i recognize my own mortality. And very much like observing the garden teeming with life of all description, there i also notice the decomposition which nurtures everything that grows in it.

    And while i realize this post is, in the end, nothing more than another way of saying what you’ve said so much more eloquently, it is my hope it at least conveys with some empathy and love of love and life, imparts a bit of compassion & caring, and gives you a tiny bit of sympathy derived from a knowingness of how being aware of the treasure of real love, deep love, the giving-over of one’s self entirely sort of love, the allowing of every possibility type of love of which you speak. And in doing so, connects soul to soul, just a bit. A sort of spiritual conversation. A belonging-ness manifested. So okay . . . thank you for causing me to pull over, to take some time, to make some time, to imagine such love, and the loss of it, to death. Because of your post. You connected with me, Emily. My imagination is running wild.

    Namaste

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