I first read the poem An Invitation, by Oriah, in my voice class in 2013. The poem first spoke to me, because it describes the way I seek to know people. I don’t want to see the public self, I want to see a person fully exhaled, open and vulnerable in my presence. The poem since continues to speak to me and there have been moments where it’s words have come to mind when I needed strength or reassurance.

One specific line from the poem has come up a lot and my perspective of it has changed. “I want to know if you can stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.” When I first read that line, it was a foreign concept, yet I wanted to know the depth of it’s truth. It never occurred to me that I could stand in the fire. Looking back to that line, up my personal reflection, I can now say that I have learned to stand in the fire. While at moments I have shrunk back, I recommitted to the hardest moments of my goal “to face any fear that comes up” and was committed to the “a leap of faith” towards a better fully creative life. I knew there was a lesson in the fire, in the struggle and in the darkness. Today’s Tune Tuesday begs the questions: Can you stand in the fire and not shrink back? Garth brooks would say: “Life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you’re standing outside the fire.”

(Note: The fire is figurative not literal.)

“Standing Outside The Fire” by Garth Brooks