life-cycles

I am in  regeneration mode...
I am eating, sleeping (napping), cleaning and organizing.
It is so strange, but wonderful to have free time.
I have been looking for jobs...applied for a few, but nothing is truly engaging me yet.

I grabbed a book, just trying to see what sparked me...I picked up The Seven Storey Mountain, by Thomas Merton...he wrote something that made me pause and consider it... He was talking about his younger brother wanting to be with him and his friends, but their rejection of him.

We will to separate ourselves from that love. We reject it entirely, and will not acknowledge it, simply because it does not please us to be loved. Perhaps the inner motive is that the fact of being loved disinterestedly reminds us that we all need love from others, and depend upon the charity of others to carry on our own lives. And we refuse love and reject society, in so far as it seems, in our own perverse imagination, to imply some obscure kind of humiliation.

Do we, or shall I say Do I, reject charity, love, assistance because it is a humiliation to need others?
I do...
I know that I do.
But, as Merton wrote, our natural tendency is to love and help others...
why is it so difficult to reciprocate and accept love.

You have accepted love and assistance...and have given love and assistance to your daughter and granddaughter...you have completed a circle, a cycle...
to give and to receive is a full cycle.

Life-cycles are interesting...
I have been studying plant life-cycles with my son...
the more ancient/primitive plants have to have water to complete their reproductive cycles...
the more advanced create protected seeds to allow germination when conditions are right... and depend upon pollinators or the winds to assist them in reproduction.
they have adapted to the demands of their environments and their environment responds to them. There is a balance.
We, humans, have changed our environments to meet our needs...
and yet, at our most basic functional level we are dependent upon each other, and charity.
But we actively fight that need for charity, support and love....
many serve others because they are driven by altruism...
but how many will graciously accept help when offered by others...
how many will allow their vulnerabilities to be seen and acknowledged.
As humans, we need assistance as infants and young children...
then we are quickly taught independence...
many of us were taught that people are untrustworthy...
and we spend our adult lives acting as if we don't need anyone.
As we become elderly and frail we again need to accept assistance and charity from others...
but there is a sense of failure...
not a natural vulnerability as with a life-cycle, but one that is fraught with guilt and shame for being dependent.
Is this how everyone views the process...or am I skewed because of my childhood experiences?
One thing that I have learned in the past 3 years is that, while my young life's experiences are not normal...they are certainly, and regretfully, not uncommon...
So I would guess that many feel this way.
 Life is all about cycles...
inspiration/expiration
fertility/infertility
dependence/independence
joy/sorrow
It is one of the dependable aspects of this life.

Love and Light,
Maggie