Acquiescence

Thursday, March 19, 2020

A HAND OF WELCOME

            The word “acquiescence” often carries a negative connotation – a sense that a person is reluctantly giving in – but it’s interesting that the word derives from the Latin word for ‘quiet’, which offers a fresh perspective on it. When I acquiesce to whatever’s happening in my life, perhaps I’ve simply settled into a disposition of relaxed acceptance. Perhaps the word implies embracing even the worst situations with calmness and a kind of respectfulness, and then studying them and trying to learn from them. Rather than suggesting a submissive attitude, acquiescence may actually suggest that saying “yes” to the universe’s plans for me can lead to a wider kind of wisdom. I may not always love what’s happening in my life, but bowing to it can bring the inner quietness and light that learning something new often produces. I might even drop the ‘ac’ in the word ‘acquiescence’. Perhaps I want to keep the quiescent kind of life I seem to have fallen into in these last 7 years, a life marked, not by the sluggishness that sometimes shows up in retirement, but by a powerful kind of peacefulness, which often can come from just accepting what’s happening. I guess I’m learning to extend a welcome to problems instead of opposing them, partly because acceptance is simply more restful than resistance, but also because working with a problem instead of against it seems to make my old life, in little and large ways, more triumphant day by day. Back in my youthful 50’s, I was often stressed and frenzied from fighting with problems, but now, in my fairly hassle-free late 70’s,  I’m trying to put out a hand of welcome to trouble, just to see what possibilities it might present.

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Below, the magnetic poems on our fridge today. (I must extend a welcome to the harvest and the music!)

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