Knowing something of his prey's character--both garrulous and easy to take offense--the fox knew that the rabbit couldn't resist tussling with the mannikin, ineluctably getting stuck in its gooey clutches. Which is what happens. The more Br'er Rabbit kicks and punches, the more deeply he becomes ensnared in the tar. Only through the exercise of superior wit does the rabbit trick the fox into throwing him into a briar patch so he can make good his escape.Oftentimes, dealing with negative thoughts and fears can be like tangling with a tar baby. There are days I find myself obsessing about things I have no control over (other people's pains and struggles, their perceptions of me, work outcomes) past issues (the meaning of a perceived slight, regret for a choice made, past sins) or a fear of what may or may not happen (the tyrannical "what ifs"") in a way that distracts me from the gifts and invitations of the present moment. The more I wrestle with these "issues" the more I become frustrated, resentful, self-pitying, self-doubting or anxious. And of course, none of the struggle actually resolves anything--all it amounts to is emotional exhaustion. Inspite of my knowing this pattern in me, I find myself falling into it again and again. Something in me just can't pass the tar baby by.
I am coming to realize that happiness requires a high tolerance for what is ambiguous, incomplete, unsatisfactory, and resistant to control. It's my expectations that everything needs to be clear, orderly, smooth, easy and tension-free, this wanting to know every twist and turn in the path ahead before I can walk it, that sets me off when life turns out to be messier than I want it to be. Happiness requires an asceticism of mind.Not everything needs to be "fixed". Just because I see the tar baby sitting by the side of the road doesn't mean I have to stop and tangle with it.
Rilke in one of his letters counsels a friend to be "patient with what is unresolved" in his life," to live the questions trusting that he will one day live into the answers. Though I've repeated those words often enough, I realize that more often than not, I am trying to THINK my way into the answers, to SOLVE rather than LIVE the deep questions of my life. Living the questions means first of all embracing the ambiguity of things and realizing that it's ok not to have all the answers and solutions beforehand. There are times when one has answers he can't profit from because although they may seem like plausible solutions, they aren't answers he is as yet prepared to own and live. At that point, they may feel like other people's answers, not his. Perhaps "living into the answer" means enter into the valley of unknowing and moving through one's quota of reflecting, waiting, praying, grieving, trusting, enduring, suffering, working and hoping in order to appreciate the truth one does find. Without the often painful but necessary inner work, the soil of our lives may not be ready, may not be fertile and welcoming enough for the seed of the "good news" to take root and flourish.
To live patiently with ambiguity, to live for a time with not having the answers we feel we need is what it means to "live by faith and not by sight." It takes a lot of trust that somehow there is a power at work in the universe that will make things clear in time. Faith allows us to move calmly through the instances of pain, darkness and confusion without needing to fix things which in the end may not even need fixing because they are not problems to be solved but rather marks of our unique human condition calling out for acceptance, understanding and integration.
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