Without all this

Without all this -- without the constant battering 

of struggle, change and longing --

we would become complacent; remain foolishly self-absorbed.

In all of life, both good and bad, we find both hurt and healing:

both imprisonment and freedom; both resistance and a yielding;

and finally, both at the root and at the destination,

the Source that feeds, and challenges, and claims us as its own.