The Jungle

“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds.” Arthur Miller

Everyone has been in the jungle. And in the midst of the jungle, we often only see the darkness. We are tripping over thick vines and stumbling on jagged rocks. We are cursing the darkness. The diamonds often glitter only once we have stepped back into the light.

I went to the wedding of a college roommate this weekend. My closest friends from college and I have scattered to different states, so far apart that the only time we are all together is at weddings. No matter the miles that separate us, there is an instant camaraderie when we are in the same room. There is something binding about three people crammed into a 1000 square-foot apartment year after school year.

As college friends do, we reflected on college, a jungle for all of us in ways that we sometimes shared and other times kept to ourselves. We told the same stories we’d told before, and we told new ones, our memories shaped by passed time. The jungle no longer seemed so frightening as we reflected on it from our perch in the sun. Found in the jungle, carried into the light, and reflecting life and beauty, we sparkled. Diamonds.

I know people in the jungle. It’s so dark that they can’t even see far enough to grasp the hand of the person struggling next to them. There are diamonds, friend. You might not see them until you are ten years further down life’s path, but at some point you will look behind you and the horizon will be a halo, blinding you with its sparkle.


“All that glitters is not gold, not all who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be a blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” JRR Tolkien