Let There Be Light

Thought for the day: Every day is as important as an anniversary, birthday, or holiday. To be cherished on any given day is more important to me than being lavished with gifts and good wishes simply because the calendar dictates it.  

hope in the ruins

Yes, I know yesterday was the tenth anniversary. Many of you blogged about your recollections of that awful day, what it still means to you, and I respect y'all for doing that. But I can't. I can't allow myself to dwell on the horrors of that day. I can't let myself feel that much bleakness again.

Yes, of course, I remember, and I grieve. Not to acknowledge the date at all would have been tantamount to ignoring the polka dotted elephant in the room. Yes, it's there. But I'm not gonna talk to him. Not today. Maybe not ever.

 I prefer to concentrate on the flowers growing in the midst of the rubble, not on the devastation that created it.  I'd rather talk about hope, the light that helps us make it through the darkness.

                So, let's pull our asses out of the doldrums and do just that.

Up and at 'em!

                                                        Song of Hope     by Thomas Hardy

                                                      O sweet To-morrow! - 

                                                      After to-day 

                                                      There will away 

                                                      This sense of sorrow. 

                                                      Then let us borrow 

                                                      Hope, for a gleaming 

                                                      Soon will be streaming, 

                                                      Dimmed by no gray - 

                                                      No gray! 

                                                     While the winds wing us 

                                                     Sighs from The Gone, 

                                                     Nearer to dawn 

                                                     Minute-beats bring us; 

                                                     When there will sing us 

                                                     Larks of a glory 

                                                     Waiting our story 

                                                     Further anon - 

                                                     Anon! 

                                                    Doff the black token, 

                                                    Don the red shoon, 

                                                    Right and retune 

                                                    Viol-strings broken; 

                                                    Null the words spoken 

                                                    In speeches of rueing, 

                                                    The night cloud is hueing, 

                                                    To-morrow shines soon - 

                                                    Shines soon! 

Hope  by Sri Chinmoy

Hope

Knows no fear.

Hope dares to blossom

Even inside the abysmal abyss.

Hope secretly feeds

And strengthens

Promise.

                                                      

     

                                                         "Hope" is the thing with feathers—

                                                          That perches in the soul—
                                                          And sings the tune without the words—
                                                          And never stops—at all—

                                                         And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
                                                         And sore must be the storm—
                                                         That could abash the little Bird
                                                         That kept so many warm—

                                                         I've heard it in the chillest land—
                                                        And on the strangest Sea—
                                                        Yet, never, in Extremity,
                                                        It asked a crumb—of Me.

                                                                                                   Emily Dickenson

Wanta feel good? Wanta cry for happy? Then check out this video. It shows an amazing reunion of two elephants. Jenny was the only elephant at the Dallas zoo for twenty years. Think she was lonely? When Jenny was a calf, and Shirley was in her twenties, the two spent a year together at a circus. They say elephants "never forget." You be the judge.

this picture, and bird pic, courtesy of perfectlytimesphotos.com

We've made it through some dark days, and we'll undoubtedly face some more in the future, but bottom line is there is ALWAYS hope.With hope, we will endure. After all, in the end, our happiness doesn't rely nearly so much on our position as it does on our disposition. Our attitude.

Consider a lawn overgrown with dandelions. We can look at it and say, "Oh, crap! Look at all those weeds!" OR we can choose to look at it through the eyes of a child, and say, "Oooh, look at all those wishes!"

Just pucker up and blow.

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other.