In the Aftermath -
There is love!
I'm sitting and thinking, and watching rain turn into icy
fingers, wrapping themselves around the branches and seed heads (still there!)
on our lilac tree. It is reminding me
that the world and life goes on around us, not paying any heed to the turmoil
that is going on inside of us. The fact
that I have worried, stressed, rewritten and practised before delivering a book
presentation to a lovely group of seniors yesterday, seems to have slipped
nature's mind! Perhaps I should take the
hint to not take myself so seriously - to get out there and find the beauty that
is all around me before my short stint on this earth is done.
As it turned out,
I had a lovely time relating my poems and my life experiences - and sharing my
limited musical interpretations to boot - take that you unfeeling drops of ice!
The fact is, that
every time I give something of myself, I reap a wonderful harvest of gifts that
others share with me. It may be new
knowledge of my surroundings, a verbal picture that someone paints of something
that happened in their past, or it may be the sharing of a dream that lies
unfulfilled in them, or in me - whatever, I am truly the richer.
The world will
still be here, long after I'm gone, but it will only have the use of my life
for a relatively short time, and I only have this time to share whatever joy I
can. We all have a responsibility to
help in the healing and building of this world with whatever gifts we are
endowed with. So rather than giving in
to those 'hot on my heels' feelings of inadequacy and smallness, I will try to
use my smallness, and take Mother
Theresa's words and example to heart:
"In this
life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love."
