Reflections: feeling lost

I am awake with confusion and uncertainty.  When I feel like this, I often pick up John O’Donohue’s book, Benedictus, A Book of Blessings, to find solace.  I have not found solace but am left reflective and am encouraged to climb out of my rut.  For Failure:

The will of colour loves how light spreads

Through its diffusions, making textures subtle,

Clothing a landscape in concealment

For colour to keep its mysteries

Hidden from the unready eye

But the light that comes after rain

Is always fierce and clear,

And illuminates the face of everything

Through the transparency of rain

Despite the initial darkening,

This is the light that failure casts.

Beholden no more to the promise

Of what dream and work would bring,

It shows where roots have withered

And where the source has gone dry.

The light of failure has no mercy

On the affections of the heart:

It emerges from beyond the personal,

A wiry, forthright light that likes to see crevices

Open in the shell of a controlled life.

Though cruel now, it serves a deeper kindness,

Wise to the larger call of growth,

It invites us to humility

And the painstaking work of acceptance

So that one day we may look back

In recognition and appreciation

At the disappointment we now endure