i have been thinking about this a lot for a very long time and thought i would share. 'cause life ain't perfect, ya know, and neither are people.
"Maybe creating a big enough space within your consciousness to hold and accept someone's contradictions--someone's idiocies, even--is a kind of divine act. Perhaps transcendence can be found not only on solitary mountaintops or in monastic settings, but also at your own kitchen table, in the daily acceptance of your partner's most tiresome, irritating faults.
What I am talking about is learning how to accommodate your life as generously as possible around a basically decent human being who can sometimes be an unmitigated pain in the ass. In this regard, the marital kitchen can become something like a small linoleum temple where we are called up daily to practice forgiveness, as we ourselves would like to be forgiven.
In the end, it seems to me that forgiveness may be the only realistic antidote we are offered in love, to combat the inescapable disappointments of intimacy.
~Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage, p. 131-133
see my review here.
2 comments:
Amen, I so agree! I think about this a lot. And not as it relates to marriage. Just people in general.
Exactly! 'Cause people ain't perfect, ya know. :)
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