“Nature is much more disorder than order.”
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
Twenty years ago, I went through something really painful. It was dark and depressing and it took me quite a while to realize it had been like falling into a six-foot hole. Just a hole only slightly wider than my body so right in front of my face was a wall of dark dirt – but I was too depressed to realize that’s where I was, that if I just looked up there was sun and life.
As I started to come out of the really painful time, maybe even as I grew into something more than I had been before the painful thing, a friend gave me a little figurine. She said it reminded her of me when she first saw it, because that was how I seemed to be as I recovered.
On the bottom of the figure is the word HAPPINESS.
Arms outstretched. Head tilted slightly back and face looking up. There are no eyes but you get a sense that that is where she would be looking.
There are also three little bluebirds perched on her arms. Bluebirds signify happiness, in case you didn’t know. Her face turned up, three little birds with wings outstretched resting on her outstretched arms.
Happiness.
Until the birds’ wings, one by one, started breaking off.