where life calmly gives out its own secret

Today I am inspired. From the greatest frustrations, pain, and insecurity can come the deepest motivation, love, and faith. Some of that transformation is a personal struggle, the individual journey that bears you from one point to another, but some of it is the direct result of the amazing and beautiful people I am lucky to have in my life.

One of these people was my roommate over the summer. I spent the months after graduation taking physics and diligently studying for the MCAT. Most days I studied or was in class for more than twelve hours. Summer in Williamsburg is a boring, eerie, humid heat that can drive you crazy. One of the only reasons I made it through was my roommate, an absolutely beautiful person who is now working in Yemen. After the earthquake struck Haiti, she told me that she was organizing a food drive in Yemen to raise funds for this little Caribbean country half a world away. But she said that Yemen is a poor country, that her boss had cautioned her against hoping for too much, that Yemenis couldn’t possibly have the knowledge or resources to contribute significantly to what is happening just across the border from me. But today I learned that her food drive raised $450 to be applied toward equipping the medical relief teams I am helping to coordinate out of Santo Domingo.

I felt such a swell of hope when she told me this. I hope that we learn to replace our charity with justice, that we trade in sympathy for empathy. I hope that we learn to have more conversations like these: http://www.conversationsforabetterworld.com/. I hope that we keep learning how to value each other’s individual experiences without losing sight of the collective whole.

Last night I went to my roof and I listened to Sweet Honey in the Rock, music on which I was raised. When I listened to this story, I was shocked to find that it was telling the story of what has just happened in Haiti. But it’s the way the story ends that inspired me.

I think that one of the most beautiful things in the world is the passion of people who know what they believe in, who know what they want to do, and for whom their work permeates every fiber of their being so that it is almost the same as living. I believe that German poet Rainer Maria Rilke was such a human being. But I’ll let you decide for yourself after reading the following:

You see, I want a lot.

Perhaps I want everything:

the darkness that comes with every infinite fall

and the shivering blaze of every step up.

So many live on and want nothing

and are raised to the rank of prince

by the slippery ease of their light judgments.

But what you love to see are faces

that so work and feel thirst....

You have not grown old, and it is not too late

to dive into your increasing depths

where life calmly gives out its own secret.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke