How Complaining Helped

Recently I was at a Depth & Mysticisim Study Group meeting where I complained about the books we had read lately. I didn’t know why I was upset nor did I know what I actually wanted to read. After the meeting I felt embarrassed by my ranting. It was bedtime and I read for a half hour and then lay awake with troubling negative thoughts about myself. I prayed for understanding of what was going on in me. In a short time I fell asleep and slept well all night.

In the morning I had a sort of epiphany. I recalled one of the letters we had read in our book on writings of Hildegard of Bingen. In it Hildegard says that we humans are fragile. Toward the end of the letter she writes of her own fragility and need. Suddenly it dawned on me that I, too, am a fragile human being. My imperfection is a given. And I realized that, yes, I am fragile just like Hildegard! Now, Hildegard was also incredibly gifted, so that phrase “just like Hildegard,” comparing myself to her, shocked me. Am I also gifted? Funny how the awareness of the possibility of being fragile yet gifted had come to me from one of those books I had been complaining about. Surprise!