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Today's
Meditation:
While Lydia
seems to be talking about our connection with nature, I
think that she's also talking about lively interests in
general. Each of us is a unique individual with
different interests and talents, and I believe that taking
a lively interest in books, in music, in art, in
woodworking or quilting can also keep our hearts
young. Having lively interests tends to keep us
interested in the world, tends to help us to see the
brighter sides of things, helps us to cope with stressful
elements of our lives.
If I have something to fall back on, then what life can
throw at me isn't always going to be negative. It's
easier to cope with an outside tragedy when we have
something inside that helps to keep us going.
Sherwood Anderson wrote a beautiful story about an elderly
farm couple whose son dies; they're able to cope with
the loss of their son through their connection with the
farm and with the earth itself. They have something
to fall back on when tragedy strikes, and though they will
grieve tremendously, their hearts will make it through.
One of the simplest interests we can foster to help
ourselves through difficult times, of course, is an
interest in the natural world that surrounds us every
single day of our lives. If we allow ourselves to
focus on the simple things of life, we can assure
ourselves that we will have something there for us to fall
back on at any moment. Even when the flowers are
gone in the winter, the beauty of the snow and other
winter things will be there for us, not to mention the
plants and even flowers that we can keep indoors all year
long.
Keeping our hearts young is a tremendous goal to have, and
a tremendous work to keep at our whole lives long.
When our hearts are young, we see the brighter side of
life, and we don't look at the world through jaded eyes
that tend to see the negative and the ugly. Rather,
we look for the positive and the beautiful, and one quite
steady rule of life is that we tend to find what we look
for.
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