The Uneventful, Unambitious Life: True Success, Possible to All

 I am so proud to report that I finally mustered up my courage and read Chapter Forty of Little Women to my children.  It's true that I delayed for as long as possible. It's true that I had to put the hankie nearby. It's true that I had already cried, multiple times, over the foreshadowing in previous chapters.

But I did it.

Finn had already read the book (he LOVES it!) and Annie already knew what happened to Beth--presumably she caught wind of it from her brother somehow--so no one was surprised, but even so, it never gets less sad.  I think the appropriate word for what I did was "sob." 

The entire chapter is poignant and wise. 

"Precious and helpful hours for Jo, for now her heart received the teaching that it needed: lessons in patience were so sweetly taught her that she could not fail to learn them; charity for all, the lovely spirit that can forgive and truly forget unkindness, the loyalty to duty that makes the hardest easy, and the sincere faith that fears nothing, but trusts undoubtingly....

"Seeing this [Beth's last days] did more for Jo than the wisest sermons, the saintliest hymns, the most fervent prayers that any voice could utter; for, with eyes made clear by many tears, and a heart softened by the tenderest sorrow, she recognized the beauty of her sister's life--uneventful, unambitious, yet full of the genuine virtues which 'smell sweet, and blossom in the dust,' the self-forgetfulness that makes the humblest on earth remembered soonest in heaven, the true success which is possible to all."

The self-forgetfulness

This is no well-praised virtue in today's world, is it?  I think a lot about social media and what is doing to us, and what kind of life it is shaping for our children.  Is there any way to achieve this "self-forgetfulness" when we are thinking of what to post next on social media--about ourselves? (Or our children?) It has its benefits, although I suspect they are fewer than its risks, and I don't want to deny the happy reality of how easily social media can connect us with far-off relatives.  (I always say--not really jokingly--that the only reason for Instagram is to see my cousins' babies and follow the Duchess of Cambridge!)

There's no way to photograph those "genuine virtues" that smell sweet and blossom in the dust.  Most of the virtuous things we do in life don't photograph well. I think about the generations of humans who lived before photography was widespread, and all the genuine virtues they must have quietly, invisibly displayed as they went about their normal lives.  All the acts of kindness, charity, forgiveness, faith, and love that happened over centuries--never captured in any form except within the heart of the recipients.

I loved this reminder that the truly successful life is, indeed, possible to us all.