How to Answer the Door

Here in the northern hemisphere, spring has finally arrived. Spring! Spring! My personal favorite time of year. And what am I getting? Temperatures heading below freezing and predictions for snow! I could be downright ornery about that. I could stomp my foot and shake my finger at the sky and yell, “Boooo!! How dare you!” at the weather. But a lot of good that would do, hey?

It would make about as much sense as me trying to change Ted’s political views, or Rene’s religion, or Mary’s methods of handling money—as much they may differ from my own. No, the wiser course is to accept what is and love life anyway.

Most of us feel an inner friction when the world doesn’t match our stories about how things should be. We believe in the intrinsic truth of our stories. We identify with them and feel that they define who we are. So it’s all too easy to take it personally when we run across situations or views that contradict them. We take offense. We want to gear up for battle against what seems an attack—against the thing that suggests that we’re wrong to believe what we’re certain is right and true.

But is there another way to handle contradictions to our beliefs, besides fighting against them? I ran across a quote this week that said, “We can’t change what life brings to our door until we learn to change the way in which we answer it.”

I can’t change the weather (or Ted, or Rene, or Mary, for that matter), but I can take charge of my disappointment in it. I can begin by accepting that it is what it is (and that my friends are who they are). I can look at the situation and see what part of it is upsetting me, and with that information in hand, I can look for ways to address what I’m experiencing as a problem.

If I step back from my distress over the predicted freezing weather, I can see that what’s upsetting me isn’t the cold itself, but its threat to my baby tulips. Then I can set about protecting them.

Stepping back from my differences with my friends’ beliefs is a little harder. I have to admit that maybe their reasons for thinking as they do are as valid as my reasons for my own beliefs. Maybe they formed their beliefs the same way I acquired mine—from childhood experiences or training, from what they read or heard in school from trusted teachers, or from media, or friends. I have to accept that maybe I don’t have a lock on the truth. Maybe it’s different or bigger than either my friends or I suppose.

Regardless of why their opinions are different from mine, I have to ask myself whether the differences are bigger than our friendship. Aren’t there many other areas of life where we are in harmony?

With so many of us at each other’s throats these days over differences of opinion, maybe each of us needs to be looking at the way we respond to what life brings to our door. When what we find there doesn’t mesh with our own ideas about what’s right or true, maybe we need to give deeper thought to how we want to respond. We won’t solve the problems that all of us agree need to be solved by fighting against each other. As author Graham Greene once wrote, “Hate is a lack of imagination.” Let’s imagine that we can be more creative by working together, that we can identify the problems more clearly, that we can be more flexible about experimenting with possible solutions.

And if we can’t, let’s accept that our differences are part of the human condition and agree to respect each other nonetheless.

Artist Andy Warhol wrote, “Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, ‘So what?’ That’s one of my favorite things to say. ‘So what.’” There’s as much wisdom as humor in that. So your ideas differ from mine. So what? I can love you anyway. And the world will continue to turn.

Wishing you gracious acceptance of whatever knocks at your door.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by R. E. Beck from Pixabay

A Tender Place, This

The rain came today, softly
and smelling of spring. Still,
the birds sang, and on the buds
of a flowering quince a wee worm
posed. In the rain’s quiet light
the world seems such a tender place,
delicate, and deserving
of all the care that we can give.

Rain on Bleeding Hearts

The red-fingered hands of bleeding hearts
reach up for the pearls of rain that scatter
themselves on its baby leaves, the ones
that survived and revived after the days
of deep cold. To them, it’s as if the threat
never happened, as if life itself wasn’t
hanging in the balance. Birth pains;
nothing more, a small price to pay
for the privilege of standing here
in this wondrous world, listening
to birdsong and the splash of falling rain.

The Yes, Whose Merest Spark of Thought

The Yes, whose merest spark of thought
creates vast worlds within worlds,
whose living laughter flows endlessly
between and around and within them,
whose joy knows no bounds,
whose forces flow in our blood,
whose light sings in our souls—
that Yes—sits here, right here,
in the midst of this moment in Spring.

Tracks of the Joy Giant

(A Happiness Tale I found from 2012. I couldn’t resist sharing it with you.)

One midnight, somewhere near the first full day of spring, the Joy Giant goes walking.

He’s huge, old J.G. Taller than the tallest trees. And his feet are enormous, ‘though he’s lighter than air.

He’s invisible to humans. But dogs can see him, mainly because their hearts are filled with the same kind of happiness as his. Little children can see him, too; but only in their dreams, and he never scares them.

Sometimes he pauses outside the homes where dogs or children live, stoops down and looks in their windows, softly chuckling at their sweetness.

He walks all over the place, just to celebrate spring. You can tell when he’s passed by. Yellow forsythia bloom in his tracks, echoing his laughter.

Now Come the Rains

Now come the rains, the cleansing spring rains,
softening the soil, rousing the waking seeds.
Let the shoots rise. Let the buds release
their leaves and flowers. Let the sun
unfurl its rainbows in the fresh, blue sky.

Now come the rains, the singing rains,
gliding down the tree trunks, pouring
puddles on the streets, filling lakes,
feeding ponds, washing winter’s sleep
from the world’s eyes, and all the while
thundering its life-giving song.

Now come the rains. Give thanks,
and let your heart rise in gladness
for the advent of Spring, for the
cleansing, softening, greening rain,
and for its mighty song.

Roadside Daffodils

“Hey!” They shouted in their loud yellow voices.
I had seen them as I whizzed past, but I saw them
as if I’d seen them a hundred times before and not,
as was truly the case, for the very first time this year,

“Hey! You! Hey!” As soon as their call reached me,
I stopped the car, backed up, pulled over and leaped out.
“Hello! Hello!” I sang to them. “You are so beautiful!”

They stood there, beaming, glad someone noticed.
pretending they didn’t care if anyone saw them at all.
But their gladness betrayed them. They wiggled with joy
and proudly posed when I asked to take their picture.

The Actual Wonder

The wonder isn’t so much the way
that forsythia blossoms in spring,
their yellow stars tumbling like clowns
by the hundreds, making something
inside of you smile. It’s that this group
of atoms sees that group as flowers
and that smiles can happen at all.

Taking Sides

I was out looking at the stars the other night, and once more I was filled with awe at the realization that our home is but one speck of rock circling one star amidst uncountable stars in one of an unknown number of galaxies. How small we are! And yet, how incredible our minds, to be able to grasp the immensity of it all, to compute the distances, to be capable of wonder and to marvel at its mysteries and order and beauty.

How can we be asleep to that? How can we take it all for granted? Why, when we’re gifted not only with intelligence but with the capacity to love, is our little world beset with such rancor and pain?

You know, there seems to be a trend afoot these days to pit us all against each other, to egg us into taking sides on every conceivable issue. Tensions and conflicts engulf our homes and work places, our neighborhoods and nations. And this, despite the fact that what the overwhelming majority of humans want is simply to get along with each other and to live our lives in harmony and peace.

None of us has the power, individually, to change the course of world events. But we can have an influence in our immediate corners of the world. That’s the place to start. From there, it evolves and spreads, of its own accord. It becomes the ripple that eventually turns the tide,

I heard a suggestion this week that I liked a lot. Instead of getting entrapped in the blame game, it said, focus on seeking solutions. Ask yourself what you can do to make things better and be willing to give your ideas a try.

Sometimes that can mean having to admit you were less than kind, or respectful, or honest. None of us is at our best all the time. We get tired, and crabby, and selfish. It’s part of being human to blame someone else for our lousy states of mind. But our ability to apologize is a part of being human, too.

Sometimes making things better means stretching beyond our comfort zones and trying on less-than-familiar behaviors—holding our tongues when we would normally confront, forgiving hurts, deciding to overlook other’s foibles instead of falling into irritation, looking for things to like in those whose opinions contrast with our own.

What can I do to make things better? That’s the solution-focused question. How can I create more harmony? More understanding? More beauty? More wholesomeness and health? What would be the kind thing to do? The loving thing? How can we work together to fix things?

“Be the peace you want to see in the world” the sage said. Every time you apply it, the world does indeed become a more peaceful place. One act, one person at a time.

Wishing you a week filled with beautiful solutions.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay

Late March Rain

The rain glides down the still bare branches
of the trees, washing them clean for springtime.
The fragrance of spring is in the air now, even though
on days like these, bathed in clouds, the world
looks as much like November as it does late March.
Until you notice the buds bursting open on the trees.
Until you spot the daffodils’ leaves rising from the soil.
Until you notice how this wet, cold air
is brimming with birdsong.
Then you know.