vale of soul-making

John Keats was twenty-three years old, sitting at his dying brother’s bedside, when he wrote one of the most quietly profound reflections on suffering ever set to paper. He did not call the world a vale of tears — he called it a vale of soul-making. In this entry, we sit with the idea that difficulty is not a punishment but a school, and that the curriculum is exactly as hard as becoming a soul requires. For anyone in a valley right now, this is worth reading.