Belief

So I read Lance Armstrong's book, "It's Not About the Bike, My Journey Back to Life" and there are TWO passages that struck as me as BIG TRUTH.

I totally dig the dude - he's unpretentious and totally himself - didn't clean up or pretty up anything in the details... and he's still unbelievable, remarkable and human.

"...I had no idea where to draw the line between spiritual belief and science. But I knew this much: I believed in belief, for its own shining sake. To believe in the face of utter hopelessness, every article of evidence to the contrary, to ignore apparent catastrophe--what other choice was there? We do it every day, I realized. We are so much stronger than we imagine, and belief is one of the most valiant and long-lived human characteristics. To believe, when all along we humans know that nothing can
cure the briefness of this life, that there is no remedy for our basic mortality, that is a form of bravery."

"To continue believing in yourself, believing in the doctors, believing in the treatment, believing in whatever I chose to believe in, that was the most important thing, I decided. It had to be.

"Without belief, we would be left with nothing but an overwhelming doom, every single day. And it will beat you. I didn't fully see, until the cancer, how we fight every day against the creeping negatives of the world, how we struggle daily against the slow lapping of cynicism. Dispiritedness and disappointment, these were the real perils of life, not some sudden illness or cataclysmic millennium doomsday. I knew now why people fear cancer: because it is a slow and inevitable death, it is the very
definition of cynicism and loss of spirit."

"So, I believed."

and then... after the story, after the journey back to life... he concludes the book -- and (I'm so glad) he continues his life...

"Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something else will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever. That surrender, even the smallest act of giving up, stays with me. So when I feel like quitting, I ask myself, which would I rather live with? Facing up to that question, and finding a way to go on, is the real reward, better than any trophy..."

"By now you've figured out I'm into pain. Why? Because it's self-revelatory, that's why. There is a point in every race when a rider encounters his real opponent and understands that it's himself. In my most painful moments on the bike, I am at my most curious, and I wonder each andevery time how I will respond. Will I discover my innermost weakness, or will I seek out my innermost strength? It's an open-ended question whether or not I will be able to finish the race. You might say pain is my chosen way of exploring the human heart."

"I don't always win. Sometimes just finishing is the best I can do. But with each race, I feel that I further define my capacity for living. That's why I ride, and why I try to ride hard, even when I don't have to. I don't want to live forever, I'll die when I'm done living, but until then I intend to ride my bike - and I'll probably keel over on it."

"Ha! There! In your face!" Whatever the challenge. Whatever your race is. Whatever "thing" you do in this life is about remembering Who You Are. That's the way to live.
--Posted by Bobbi Jo to Our Girlie Eyes Only at 2/18/2005 02:45:00 PM

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And then I contemplate this idea. I am into pain too. My poet's soul.. haven't I almost joyfully lamented before? My pain-wracked, poetic, tender, absorbent soul…

And it's true. How I AM at my most curious when I'm a wreck. When I am not sure if I can stand one more time - maybe not the physical struggle - but spiritually, mentally, stand against the fear, the bitterness, the disillusionment, the unbelieving moments. What will I do?
That's when my writing times are most frantic. That's when the yearning for clarity and reason is knocking so loudly that I'm all consumed with finding the answers. Of course, you must take time for that. Of course, I must take the time for that. This, right now, you, me, the future, the past, this is that time. And, I don't have to worry about the details. I must discover the truth, hidden in the depths of the details. Like when I'm looking for an answer and I find it in a book.

Miracles happen in a day - in a moment - that's part of the definition of miracles. It is the readying of the soul for the miracles, the preparing of the field for the planting, nurturing the fragility to guarantee the bounty that is the humanity of life. It's when the soul makes that quantum leap into a newly, or rather re-defined way of Being, that the circle is complete - the miracle is manifested.

I have to believe that - otherwise, what other choice is there? I believe.