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January 23, 2012
suicide
I once stood on a bridge in Paris and saw from a distance on a road leading down to the river a suicide victim wrapped in oilcloth. He had just been pulled dead from the Seine. Suddenly I heard someone next to me say something. It was a young blond carter in a blue jacket, very young, strawberry blond, with a smart, clever, pointed face. On his chin was a wart from which sprouted almost exuberantly a stiff bunch of red hairs like a paintbrush. Since I turned toward him, he pointed with a nod of his head toward the object that elicited our attention and said, winking at me: “Don’t you think, this one over there, since he was able to manage that, he surely could have done still other things as well.” I followed him with my gaze, astonished, while he was already walking back to his enormous cart filled with rocks, for truly: what would one not be able to achieve with exactly that strength that is necessary to untie the strong and mighty bonds of life! Since that day, I know with absolute certainty that even the worst turn of events, that even despair is only abundance, that it is an onslaught of our being that could be forced in the opposite direction with one single decision of the heart. Where something becomes extremely difficult and there we also stand always already quite near its transformation.
Rilke - Letters on Life
Posted by amin at January 23, 2012 3:20 PM