Love lives here
Jan 21, 2012 16:05:18 GMT
Post by anglophile on Jan 21, 2012 16:05:18 GMT
Who could think of anything else except the heartbreaking news our dear Rumantic has come to us with today?
We will all respond in different 'faith' ways to her request -- those of us who opt to send messages of support she can read and reread and those of us who are quet in print but still have loving hearts that respond in a variety of ways. Some of us would have prayed as a first step whether she had asked it of us or not; others would have their own unique and meaningful ways to share support with her.
I can't imagine that any of us could have learned of this tragedy and not reached out from around the world in some way.
If only that love and support could shrink all the pain to 'manageable' proportions. It cannot, of course, but it can -- and will -- help. It will not be the miraculously instantaneous healing touch, but it will be the soothing salve that is part of the process of knitting things back together.
We will go on laughing and joking and quipping and longing and lusting and speculating and sharing here on the board, but Rumantic and her family will not leave our thoughts, I imagine.
I hope she and her husband and son and others who are devastated by this tragedy are surrounded by people who can enfold them in physical manifestations of love and support. I hope it does not end when the newspaper headlines are finally silent on the subject and turn to a new story. I hope that -- rather than her having to seek it out -- there will always be a shoulder ready for her and arms beckoning her to come into shelter.
I use the word 'hope' because I think it is a term we can all be in agreement over, whatever our spiritual or non-spiritual natures may lead us to respond with. But the truth is, for me, I really have no other way to respond effectively than to honor her request to pray and then to do it often and confidently.
I write this not to 'witness' or 'preach' in any way, but simply as a way of exploring thoughts that have been hovering in the back of my mind long before this tragedy unfolded.
We share a passion here. It is a lovely diversion. It is a wonderful holiday from reality. It is a marvelous outlet for creativity. It is a community and a force and a haven and an escape and a teen-age 'sleepover' all rolled into one.
But the truth is, we are fairly anonymous -- revealing only as much of ourselves as we feel comfortable sharing.
To read our posts, anyone would suspect we were the most carefree women in the world, united by admiration for a carefree man.
It is a wonderful thing to have these special joys in our lives and I hope there are many, many others, as well.
But we all know -- too well, I suspect, in many cases -- that this is not the whole truth. We each have our own hurts and hauntings and unmet needs and unsatisfied longings and private tragedies and public humiliations -- Rufus included. And if we don't have them today, we will in some tomorrow. That is the nature of life.
Since coming on the board almost six months ago, I have added immeasurably to my store of 'friends' -- friends whose faces, in most cases, are unknown to me. Much else about each of you is unknown, as well, although some of us have reached beyond our screen personas and revealed a little more of our lives.
I've wondered if we 'met' under other circumstances whether we would like each other as much as we do here. I would prefer to think we would, but we might not. We might, instead, be separated by politics or religion or social status or petty jealousies and might miss -- because of these tensions -- some wonderful shared commitments.
So I am grateful that Rufus has bound us into this community where we meet on a playing field defined by something as simple as our admiration for him and the knowledge that we are not 'crazy,' (although each of you must have wondered about me.)
Maybe the world would be a better and far more peaceful place if everyone 'met' first over Rufus.
This is, clearly, a rambling missive occasioned by a tragedy, but I want to use it to make a couple of points:
I do not believe in coincidences. I think we have all found each other here for some purpose -- large or small -- but I also believe we may never know the influence we have had on each other, in most cases. For my part, I can only hope it will always be a positive, a helpful, a hopeful, a caring, a smile-inducing, a tear-drying effect.
I do believe we see only part of the picture -- part of the picture each of us chooses to reveal and part of the picture that is so much larger than a board or a 'fan club' but that incorporates those things in an amazing way.
So for how ever much longer I am here or you are here, know that you have been a valuable and blessed part of my life.
And Rufus has been so much more than Tom or Petruchio or Mick or Charles or Frank or Billy or Giles or any of those other wonderful roles he has played or will play. He never meant to, I'm sure, and he may never realize the extent to which he has, I'm quite certain, bound us all together for purposes large and small, crystal clear and forever mysterious, temporary and eternal. And yet he has done just that. Maybe it's the 'role' we will all ultimately remember him best for.
Life is an amazing and wonderful and fearful thing. Today we have been reminded anew that it is also a hurting thing.
We will be reminded again, I know.
We may escape our own hurts here for a while. We may help someone else deal with theirs in ways we are never even aware of.
Whatever other purposes are met here, that is no small thing.
Thank you for letting me be a bumbling part of it.
Be blessed. It is what I hope and pray for each of you.
We will all respond in different 'faith' ways to her request -- those of us who opt to send messages of support she can read and reread and those of us who are quet in print but still have loving hearts that respond in a variety of ways. Some of us would have prayed as a first step whether she had asked it of us or not; others would have their own unique and meaningful ways to share support with her.
I can't imagine that any of us could have learned of this tragedy and not reached out from around the world in some way.
If only that love and support could shrink all the pain to 'manageable' proportions. It cannot, of course, but it can -- and will -- help. It will not be the miraculously instantaneous healing touch, but it will be the soothing salve that is part of the process of knitting things back together.
We will go on laughing and joking and quipping and longing and lusting and speculating and sharing here on the board, but Rumantic and her family will not leave our thoughts, I imagine.
I hope she and her husband and son and others who are devastated by this tragedy are surrounded by people who can enfold them in physical manifestations of love and support. I hope it does not end when the newspaper headlines are finally silent on the subject and turn to a new story. I hope that -- rather than her having to seek it out -- there will always be a shoulder ready for her and arms beckoning her to come into shelter.
I use the word 'hope' because I think it is a term we can all be in agreement over, whatever our spiritual or non-spiritual natures may lead us to respond with. But the truth is, for me, I really have no other way to respond effectively than to honor her request to pray and then to do it often and confidently.
I write this not to 'witness' or 'preach' in any way, but simply as a way of exploring thoughts that have been hovering in the back of my mind long before this tragedy unfolded.
We share a passion here. It is a lovely diversion. It is a wonderful holiday from reality. It is a marvelous outlet for creativity. It is a community and a force and a haven and an escape and a teen-age 'sleepover' all rolled into one.
But the truth is, we are fairly anonymous -- revealing only as much of ourselves as we feel comfortable sharing.
To read our posts, anyone would suspect we were the most carefree women in the world, united by admiration for a carefree man.
It is a wonderful thing to have these special joys in our lives and I hope there are many, many others, as well.
But we all know -- too well, I suspect, in many cases -- that this is not the whole truth. We each have our own hurts and hauntings and unmet needs and unsatisfied longings and private tragedies and public humiliations -- Rufus included. And if we don't have them today, we will in some tomorrow. That is the nature of life.
Since coming on the board almost six months ago, I have added immeasurably to my store of 'friends' -- friends whose faces, in most cases, are unknown to me. Much else about each of you is unknown, as well, although some of us have reached beyond our screen personas and revealed a little more of our lives.
I've wondered if we 'met' under other circumstances whether we would like each other as much as we do here. I would prefer to think we would, but we might not. We might, instead, be separated by politics or religion or social status or petty jealousies and might miss -- because of these tensions -- some wonderful shared commitments.
So I am grateful that Rufus has bound us into this community where we meet on a playing field defined by something as simple as our admiration for him and the knowledge that we are not 'crazy,' (although each of you must have wondered about me.)
Maybe the world would be a better and far more peaceful place if everyone 'met' first over Rufus.
This is, clearly, a rambling missive occasioned by a tragedy, but I want to use it to make a couple of points:
I do not believe in coincidences. I think we have all found each other here for some purpose -- large or small -- but I also believe we may never know the influence we have had on each other, in most cases. For my part, I can only hope it will always be a positive, a helpful, a hopeful, a caring, a smile-inducing, a tear-drying effect.
I do believe we see only part of the picture -- part of the picture each of us chooses to reveal and part of the picture that is so much larger than a board or a 'fan club' but that incorporates those things in an amazing way.
So for how ever much longer I am here or you are here, know that you have been a valuable and blessed part of my life.
And Rufus has been so much more than Tom or Petruchio or Mick or Charles or Frank or Billy or Giles or any of those other wonderful roles he has played or will play. He never meant to, I'm sure, and he may never realize the extent to which he has, I'm quite certain, bound us all together for purposes large and small, crystal clear and forever mysterious, temporary and eternal. And yet he has done just that. Maybe it's the 'role' we will all ultimately remember him best for.
Life is an amazing and wonderful and fearful thing. Today we have been reminded anew that it is also a hurting thing.
We will be reminded again, I know.
We may escape our own hurts here for a while. We may help someone else deal with theirs in ways we are never even aware of.
Whatever other purposes are met here, that is no small thing.
Thank you for letting me be a bumbling part of it.
Be blessed. It is what I hope and pray for each of you.
(I try so hard to be a grown-up, but I am approaching my second childhood and you'll just have to forgive me when the minx slips back in.)