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Today's
quotation:
Life
is a thing of many stages and moving parts. What we do
with
ease at one time of life we can hardly manage at another.
What we
could not fathom doing when we were young, we find great joy in
when we are old. Like the seasons through which we move,
life
itself is a never-ending series of harvests, a different fruit
for every time.
Joan
Chittister
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Today's
Meditation:
I wish more
of us could celebrate the changes and shifts of life
rather than fighting them. I can't and won't do many
things that I used to do as a young man, but that's okay
by me-- I do plenty now that I never did then, and I enjoy
what I do greatly. Somehow we get the idea in our
mind that we have to stay the same, that the person we are
right now has to be the same as the person we were ten or
fifteen years ago, or ten or fifteen years from now.
The truth is, though, that we really don't.
Life
gives us seasons, just as a year gives us seasons. I
can ski in the winter, but I can't do so naturally in the
summer, and that's not something that anyone complains
about, is it? Twenty years ago I could run faster
than I can now, and that's fine with me; when I was
younger I used to like to read comic books, but now they
don't interest me in the least. It's not that I
dislike them now-- I just don't feel like reading them any
more.
Usually
when I read about people who are encouraging us to
recognize and appreciate the seasons of life, the word
that I see most is "graceful." We need to
gracefully move from age to age, from one stage of life to
another. Even in the "Desiderata," one of
the most important lines challenges us to "gracefully
surrender the things of youth." I love the
seasons of the year, and I've come to love the seasons of
my life, too.
Just
because we respect the seasons of life, though, doesn't
mean we can't keep on doing things that we love
doing. No, I don't run like I did years ago, but I
still run because I love to do so. I'm not a little
child any more, but I do like watching cartoons (good
ones, anyway) and laughing. Let's allow the seasons
of life to bring their changes to us, but let's also
continue to enjoy the things that we truly enjoy without
thinking that we're "supposed" to stop doing
them just because we've passed a certain age.
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