—Alice Walker, from Living By The Word: Selected Writings, 1973-1987
Alice Malsenior Walker, 69, is an American author and activist. She wrote the critically acclaimed novel The Color Purple (1982) for which she won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In 1952, when she was 8 years old, Walker was accidentally wounded in the right eye by a shot from a BB gun fired by one of her brothers. She said the act was actually deliberate but she agreed to protect her brother against their parents’ anger if they knew the truth. Because the family had no car, the Walkers could not take their daughter to a hospital for immediate treatment. By the time they reached a doctor a week later, she had become permanently blind in that eye. When a layer of scar tissue formed over her wounded eye, Alice became self-conscious and painfully shy. Stared at and sometimes taunted, she felt like an outcast and turned for solace to reading and to writing poetry. When she was 14, the scar tissue was removed. She later became valedictorian and was voted most-popular girl, as well as queen of her senior class, but she realized that her traumatic injury had some value: it had allowed her to begin “really to see people and things, really to notice relationships and to learn to be patient enough to care about how they turned out.”
Image Credit: csmonitor. Quote Credit: A Poet Reflects. Walker Bio: Wiki
Live & Learn 
“..we are being prepared for the next phase of our life..” I believe this – that when we lie fallow for a time, there is a reason that isn’t prepared to make itself know just yet.
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I feel it, but yet to fully believe and embrace it.
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This resonates so deeply with me. I, too, believe that all things are revealed in the time at which we are ready to embrace or handle them, which oftentimes isn’t on our schedule. I love the analogy of the seed germinating and pressing upward through the soil– surging toward the light and air it must have to survive, but bent double by the process. Wow….
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Yes, the seed analogy captivated me too Lori…beautiful.
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i am reminded of the butterflies we raise in my classroom each year. what must it be like for them? their uncomfortable struggles to break free of the comfort of the cocoon. do they have a moment’s hesitation, wondering if it would be better to stay, in the peace and knowing of a familiar place? or do they jump in, not knowing exactly what’s to come next, instinct and no hope of stopping the metamorphosis from just taking over? i watch them as they emerge, a bit awkward, and they slowly unfurl their new wings, still wet, and flutter them a little, as they get used to the new feel of the body and the place where they now find themselves. after a very short time, they begin to fly and we let them go free into the world, for the next stage of their life.
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Beautiful and appropriate analogy Beth, thank you for sharing.
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Love the feeling of anticipation…what will emerge? I have never been disappointed.
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Yes!
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Alice Walker is among my favourite authors. And this a welcome read at the moment. Thank you.
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Thank you. I haven’t read any of her books (including The Color Purple – I may be one of the few on the planet that hasn’t). I need to dive in.
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She is very intelligent, deeply thoughtful, and her books reflect that. My favourite book of hers is The Secret of My Familiar. Second, and a difficult read, is Possessing the Secret of Joy. Her first book, The Third Life of Grange Copeland is amazing. I also do like The Color Purple. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on that she has written and highly recommend her work. I will say, she does not choose easy topics. She’s not beach reading. But she’s well worth the effort. (She actually writes well, so it’s not a slog. But she writes about very difficult things. She has said she sees her role as a witness, and I believe she writes with that in mind.) If you let her work in, she is an author who will assist you on becoming a deeper and more thoughtful person.
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Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I’ll keep this for reference. Appreciate it.
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Very inspiring, and something I need to keep in mind during periods of growth, and something I wish I realized during my evolving youth.
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Unfortunately we are moving too fast as youth, not sure I would have slowed down or cared to listen then…
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Hmmm. Right now, I’m identifying with Alice Walker, for several reasons. Thanks for sharing this with us today, David.
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Many of us are Ann….thanks.
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I think that expression “No pain, no gain” can just as easily be applied to spiritual growth as to physical fitness regimes and work goals.
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Yes, in theoretical sense. I’ve heard new research that say that if you are in pain as far as physical exercise, you’ve taken it too far. 🙂
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I love this post, her message, and learning more about her. Thank you for the gift of your post.
Russ
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Russ, I felt the same way after reading it. Thank you.
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I’ve been thinking about this post all day. I appreciate that without conflict, there’d be no progress, yet does it have to be so painful?
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Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
*Rumi*
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Beautiful, thank you!
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