The tulip had given its best. It pushed itself through near-frozen soil and withstood cold nights that took some of its companions. It formed its bud slowly, holding it closed until it was sure the threat of freezing was gone. And then it opened, full of splendor, its petals painted in a rainbow of pinks, and corals and orange For days it stood, offering its song to the garden, to the sky, to all who chanced to pass by. And when it finally spent itself and bowed to the ground, the sky wept in pearly droplets that bathed its dying petals in a wash of love, in honor of all it had given, for all that it had been.
Having completed their evening chorus, the songbirds are still now, nestled in their leafy shelters, dreaming of flight. But from the upper woods on the slope of the south hill, a turkey calls, its sound linking in my mind to the call of a loon that I heard at sunset when I was ten and spending a week at a camp by a lake in a Michigan woods. I remember the temperature and fragrance of the evening air, the sky’s colors, the cracking bonfire, and how we all joined hands, and facing the sun as it melted into the lake, sang “Taps.” As I gaze at the sunset’s lingering colors, the turkey calls again, and I hear a choir of children. “All is well,” they sing. “Safely rest. God is nigh, God is nigh.”
A curtain of rain had covered the hillside for what seemed like endless days. When, finally, it lifted, the world was drenched in green and you found yourself breathing emeralds touched with honeysuckle perfume.
I ran across a quote from the Buddha this week that touched me with its simplicity and wisdom:
“Teach this triple truth to all: A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”
We have but to look around us to see that humanity is in need of renewal—on so many levels. We need a renewal of our ideals, of our morality, of our sense of decency and of neighborliness. We need to renew our vision of what humanity can accomplish, of our reverence for life itself and of our personal responsibility to contribute to life with whatever gifts we have been given.
It seems a monumental task sometimes. So much is broken and crumbling; so much is in need of healing and repair.
And yet, in one simple sentence, the Buddha has given us the way. Be kind. Care about each other. Do what you can to add ease to someone’s day. That’s where all healing beings, after all—in one heart opening to another.
In the neighborhood grocery I frequent, a special young woman works as a clerk. She looks each customer in the eye and smiles a cheerful hello as if she were greeting an old friend that she hadn’t seen for a long time. And without fail, the customers smile back and each one, no matter how weary or old or burdened, leaves the store feeling renewed. It doesn’t take much. One heart, opening to another.
Who knows? Maybe her smile changed someone’s attitude, prevented an argument, eased someone’s loneliness. Maybe it got passed on. Maybe it spread to a hundred people before the day was through, and the world was made a lighter place, a hundred times over.
It sounds like a trifling thing, a friendly smile. But once I heard about a man who was on his way to jump off a bridge and end his life when the eye contact and a smile of a stranger shot a ray of hope into him and gave him the courage to let his life continue on.
We get lost in our electronic gadgets, ignoring the person beside us while we busily fiddle with our little hand-held screens. We forget to speak to one another face to face, and more importantly, to listen to one another with caring and compassion and interest. And yet we’re starved for human contact, for conversation, for an hour spent with an engaged companion who is as interested in us as in herself, for the touch of a hand, the sharing of ideas and laughter and play.
To live a life of service and compassion means to live with awareness of the needs of others, and to address those needs with whatever level of kindness you’re willing and able to provide at the time. Your actions don’t have to be grand or daring. Service doesn’t have to be a profession of anything except your empathy. Profess that, in whatever way you can. Let your heart be generous and your words be kind. Do that, and you will have done your part to make the world a brighter place.
Over the decades of birthdays past life has grown complex. You think, when you are young, that you will reach a point of dreams come true, maybe by the old age of forty or so, and coast to the end from there, fulfilled and at ease. Then reality happens, revealing a world that’s nothing you had supposed or wanted it to be. Life, you discover, can be tough, it’s lessons hard, its pathways often rocky. But, oh, the treasures it bestows along the way! The rays of truth and wisdom, the touches from loving hands, the songs of Silent Teachers singing through the seasons, smiles of strangers and children, the stream of companions and friends, and always, the infinite sky, painting the unfathomable Yes to remind you, despite any evidence to the contrary, that you never truly left home and have always been known and dearly loved. And so, arriving at this birthday present, my 78th, I celebrate sunlight spilling through green branches onto pink azalea blossoms and give thanks for another day of waking on this wondrous and challenging globe.
What? For me? This exact moment in a forever of time; this exact spot out of all of the everywheres! This perfect clear sky and the thousands of blossoms and tender new leaves! Why, thank you! It’s lovely! More than I ever dreamed.
One day, years and years ago, on a day much like this one, I walked along a country road, much like this one. It had been a long, hard winter. I had passed the time assembling picturesque, thousand-piece jigsaw puzzles. Now, looking up at the scene before me as I walked, I suddenly saw the world transform into a giant jigsaw puzzle, its pieces etched against the sky. “What would happen,” I wondered, “If I reached up and pulled a piece out?” So I did. And then I knew. What an amazing dream!
If I were a bird, that’s where I’d be, on the highest branch of the tallest tree, watching the world, feeling the breeze, catching the songs, completely at ease. I could fly off; I do as I please. But how lovely it is at the top of the trees!
I watch the trees dance in the spring air, their newly unfurled leaves like lace against the sky. I remember that today is the last day of April, perhaps the last April that I will ever see. So I pause and look at all the days that unfolded as April breezed by, ushering in a waking world beyond all we had imagined. A parade of wildflowers flowing on the hours, astonishing surprises at every turn, an endless spectrum of mood and fragrance, and all of it vivid and alive and real. Some, I suppose, will remember you for your torrents of wind and rain. I will remember the beauty of all you brought to life. I bow to you, April, as you take your leave. Farewell, sweet one. Farewell.
As I walked beside the lake, heading to the lower pond, a flash of light caught my eye. Curious, I turned in its direction and spotted a man at a picnic table by the swing set beside the park’s only shelter, a laptop and a stack of books spread before him. My first impulse was to walk on, leaving him to study undisturbed. But the sight was so unusual, that I couldn’t help but approach him. “I just wanted,” I said as he looked up and smiled, “to say hello to a man who is wise enough to choose a place as quiet and nourishing as this in which to study.” He grinned. “It certainly beats my dorm room,” he said. “Well, may you become your class Valedictorian!” I said, waving farewell as I resumed my walk and he returned to his studies. When I was far enough away that he wouldn’t notice I snapped a picture of him. Someday, maybe I’ll tell folks that I encountered him once when he was just a student, studying in a patch of pines.
