Lessons From Nature - April Showers by John Gilmore
It has been said that April showers bring May flowers. When it is May and I look out the window I can see that the statement is true. Most of us can. May days are often beautiful. The skies are blue, the clouds billowy and crisp and the winds subtle and cool. On days like those I often stop, take a breath, look around, and perceive the beauty of nature. All these plants that were formerly just brown branches, or non existent, are suddenly spreading their leaves and blossoms, bringing the world back to life.
As I notice the beauty and wonder of spring, I am reminded of life and how beautiful and wonderful it is. Life can be devastating, of course--sometimes, but life is also wonderful. For it is in the experience of the wind and the sun, the cold and the warmth, the pain and the delight that we find real life.
To live a full life means experiencing the joys and the sorrows. If we only experience the joys and do not experience the sorrows, we will become less than human. Our hearts will harden and we will become the cause of other people's distress. Not experiencing sorrows in our lives removes our capacity to empathize with others and to love freely.
Feeling too much sorrow and no joy destroys us. It does not give us hope for the future. It makes us angry and spiteful, so that we always want to reach out and to hurt others. It makes us less than human, because it teaches us that we can only gain by lashing out. We can only find comfort by making others as miserable, or more miserable than we are. That is why I am grateful for the joys and for the sorrows. Without both the joys and the sorrows, we don't have life--we have self justification and survival.
It is very important for us to the time, therefor, to stop and look up at the beautiful skies--to look at the beauty of the running brook, or the still placid lake, or to just feel a cool wind against our faces and to inhale deeply. It is important to enjoy life to the fullest. What can we enjoy? We can enjoy friends, loved ones, and experiences. We can enjoy life as its beauty and awe, like the flowers after the rain, burst forth in beauty and wonder. We can find the strength, the hope, the power to go forward through the onslaughts of pain and sorrow knowing this: We have the power to make life beautiful again. When the sorrow and the pain comes let us be reminded that they will one day pass. If we have been mindful through the pain and suffering, all of the good things will spring up like roses after the rain.
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