Worth Reading - A Passage from a book

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Take from this what you will…… A passage from Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow By: Elizabeth Lesser Brief summary of this person: she’s very depressed and her life is falling apart. Her very good friend is very concerned about her and convinces her to go to Jerusalem with her. Her friend is a tour guide. She’s so concerned that she pays her friends fare. When this woman is in Jerusalem she realizes her problems are still with her. She wonders into this store in Jerusalem:“One narrow, dusky shop appealed to me, and I went in. On the floor was a patch work of persian rugs. On the walls hung small paintings, some of saints and prophets, and others of mountains and flowers. Was this a gallery? A rug store? A gift shop? I couldn’t tell. In the back of the long room, drinking tea at a low table, sat two Arab men dressed in white caftans. One was a stooped and aged gentleman, and the other –his son perhaps – was a mysterious looking character with gleaming eyes and long, black hair like the mane of a well groomed horse. After a while the son put down his tea and came forward to greet me. Fixing his gaze on me, as if trying to read the secrets of my heart (or the contents of my purse), he said in perfect English “Come, you will like this picture.” Taking my hand, he led me around piles of rugs to the back of the store, near where his father was sitting. The old man stood and shuffled over to meet me. He placed his right hand on his heart and bowed his head in the traditional islamic greeting. “Look,” he said, pointing at a small painting hanging on the wall. He touched my arm with the kindness of a grandfather. “See the rose?” He asked, turning me toward the picture. There, framed in dark wood, was the ethereal image of a rosebud, with shimmering, pale petals holding one another in a tight embrace. Under the flower was an inscription that read:And the time came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Unexpected tears stung my eyes as I read the words. “What is wrong?” The long haired man asked. “Nothing is wrong.” I said, “I’m fine.” “No, something is wrong,” the man said, “you are in pain.” “What do you mean?” I asked, suspicious yet curious. Was he a con man, trying to sell me the painting, or was my heartache that palpable, my story so easily read? I felt exposed, as if the long haired man was a spy of the soul who knew all about my marriage, my two little boys, and the crazy mess my husband and I had made of our life together. “What do you mean?” I asked again. I looked at the man. They stared back at me. We stood in silence, and then the long haired man repeated, “You are in pain. Do you know why?” “No, why?” I asked, even though I certainly did know why. “Because you are afraid.” “Afraid of what?” “Afraid of yourself,” the man said, placing his hand on his chest and patting his heart. “You are afraid to feel your real feelings. You are afraid to want what you really want. What do you want?” “You mean the painting? You think I want the painting?” I asked, suddenly confused and desperate to get away from the smell of the rugs and the intensity of the man. “I don’t want the painting.” I said, making my way toward the door. The man followed me to the front of the shop. He stood directly in front of me, took my hand, and put it over my heart. “I don’t mean the painting,” he said kindly. “I mean what the painting says. I mean that your heart is like the flower. Let it break open. What you want is waiting for you in your own heart. The time has come. May Allah bless you.” Then he slipped back into the darkness.” “As I rested in the tub, the words under the painting echoed thorugh my mind. Somehow, the long haired man had seen into me and named the source of my pain. I was like the rosebud, holding myself together, tight and tense, terrified of breaking open. But the time had come. Even if I was risking everything to blossom, the man was right. It was time for me to find out what I really wanted – not what my husband wanted, not what I thought my children needed, not what my parents expected, not what society said was good or bad. It was time for me to step boldly into the fullness of life, with all of its dangers and all of its promises. Remaining tight in a bud had become a kind of death. The time had come to blossom.”