Unafraid of What Is Difficult

You know how at times it seems like there is Something out there trying to send you a message?

Yeah, me too.

After yesterday's Life Journal entry, the one from Psalm 62, about silence and waiting, when I turned on my Kobo this morning, to read today's reading from, A Year With Rilke, this is what greeted me:

Unafraid of What Is Difficult
Don't be confused by the nature of solitude, when something inside you wants to break free from your loneliness. This very wish, when you use it as a tool for understanding, can illumine your solitude and expand it to include all that it is. Bound by conventions, people tend to reach for what is easy. It is clear, however, that here we must be unafraid of what is difficult. For all living things in nature must unfold in their particular way and become themselves at any cost and despite all opposition.

—Rainier Maria Rilke

Rome, May 14, 1904
Letters To A Young Poet

Yes, silence and solitude—heck—ALL the spiritual disciplines are difficult. Everything that causes you to grow has difficulty that comes automatically with it. I don't need to discipline myself to eat potato chips; that comes perfectly naturally to me. But I do need to push myself to eat broccoli.

So, while yesterday's goal of the week may not have started out well, I am continuing to press on...