lenten journal: aftermath
In my reading this week, I came across these words:
If we’re not to lose heart in the aftermath of failures, we must take care how we tell our stories. -- (Lawrence Weinstein, Grammar for a Full Life: How the Ways We Shape a Sentence Can Limit or Enlarge Us)
His words helped me find these.
aftermath
the oldest use of the word has nothing to do with tragedy or arithmetic
and all to do with agriculture the aftermath grows after the first crop has been cut
something grows after failure and heartache in the wake of absence after grief
the stories are the soil we retell (re-toil) or perhaps the seeds of second chances
that add up to more than the sum of our catastrophes inadequacies and mistakes
after math comes story time where the words can add up to more than what was lost
Peace, Milton
