Struggle changes us; it grows us up.  It takes the dew off the rose and the gilt off the silver.  It turns the fantasies of life into reality.  But struggle does more than that.  It also gives life depth and vision, insight and understanding, compassion and character.  It not only transforms us, it makes us transform as well.  Then we become equal to the pressures of the world around us. Once we have truly struggled with something that stretches the elastic of the spirit, we are worthy to walk with others in struggle too.  The we're ready to listen.  Then we're able to lead.  When we know the meaning of what it is to struggle with something in life we become totally human.

                                                    ~~Joan Chittister "Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope"

This I found to be true. Feeling worthy, listening with better ears -- without judgement attached -- well maybe just a little, but not nearly as much or often as before. Everyone looks fragile now, everyone looks like they could use some gentleness in their lives.  I think this speaks to one's ego getting totally stripped away by life's event's and knowing in a deep way that we are not God. The precise moments in a crisis when there is nothing left except God; when down on your knees you are not a projection, no thoughts separate you from the reality there is and it turns out that reality is an illusion and God is not.   At this point we are nothing but human and we now know it and can never un-know it.