High on Happiness

Posts Tagged ‘Healing’

“Let there be green!” sings sweet April as she makes a final sweep across the land.  “Let there be healing and transformation.  Let there be renewal and joyous, loving life.”

And here below, the last buds open to her command and their tiny leaves burst forth.  The juicy grasses dance in the dewy air, and along the creek’s banks, the mosses come alive.

Then, as newborn animals romp across the emerald fields, and blossoms of every hue wave from every corner, she floats through the arch of a rainbow and disappears, and wee birds sing her song.

Sometimes, when rain falls this time of year, I think it has come in empathy for all the broken hearts, to grieve with them, to comfort them in their sorrow.  Loss is especially difficult to bear when the rest of the world is wrapped in tinsel and bright song.

And so sometimes, the rain comes, pulling its soft clouds over the dazzling sky, to sing its quiet melodies of compassion. “I am with you; I understand,” it sings.  “You are not alone.”

Sometimes it will rain all day and into the night, so great is the need for its healing.

And when it goes, it leaves behind lustrous tokens of its visit, a final message of healing and hope, small pearls of joy, reflecting the morning’s promise.  The light shall return.  Always, the light shall return.

Here in this lovely mid-winter now, in this earth-breath where the stream flows open beneath the rusty spent leaves of the young oak, where white sycamores reach to the sky, and the snow lies in rounded mounds above the singing winters, I find reason enough to keep on.

Here, in this vast lonely landscape, with my boots kicking up powdered diamonds and wee birds chirping in the trees, I watch the play of light and shadow and need nothing more.

The slow melodious rhythm of it all wraps me in its wisdom; the clarity of its light heals my heart.  Here in this lovely singing now, in this perfect moment, peace dances glorious and free, even though it is winter.

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Walk lightly in the world.  You write your tracks on hearts, you know, everywhere you go.  And hearts are tender.

Hearts are tender and the world can be cold.  Even the most dazzling life is sometimes streaked with shadow.

Let the impressions you make, then, be those of gladness, encouragement, and healing.  Leave some gentle laughter in your wake, a draft of comfort.

You never know when one small smile or single word of kindness will make all the difference.

Walk lightly.

Interpret it as you will.  Call it allegory, call it myth.  Take the current account as literal truth.  It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that inside you, something is drawn by the Light.  Something in you longs for the Word that will make all things clear, give you hope, give you peace, let you understand, heal you, love you, set you free.

And once, we are told, the Great Yes took on human form and came to live among us, offering all this and more, pointing the way, living it for our benefit.

And even though its passage through the sands of time and across a multitude of cultures has woven countless versions of the tale, its essence remains.  Its truth lives within us still and sings to us in the darkness, bringing hope, kindling the flame of faith, of belief that all our highest ideals are rooted in it somehow, and through it will one day blossom and bear fruit.

Past the farthest reaches of our reason, beyond our limited capacity to understand, the Great Yes speaks to us still, to our hearts, to our spirits, to our souls.  It beckons us.  It radiates love and joy.  It tells us we are one with it, and with each other.

In it lies fulfillment, and peace, and freedom, and boundless potential.

And on this night, we sing of the legend, we sing of the story.  We sing of the birth of Love and Light, of Peace and Good Will, personified in a being who took on human form that we might be truly known.  And our hearts overflow with the joy of it, and burst with a grand Alleluia, in praise, in worship, in thanksgiving.

And from the heart of the cosmos, the Source of it all, the Giver of Life, echoes back our joy and, calling us each by name, whispers, “All is well, my child.  Be at peace. You are loved.”

The spirits of the fallen ones rise free, softer than breath, etching on our minds the memory of their summer days.

Oh, how they danced then, so supple and alive, as green and shining as the breeze.   We thought they would go on forever, so joyous was their song.

Gazing at the emptiness of the spaces they once filled, we are bereft.  The world is not the same without them, nor will it be, ever again.

There’s nothing we would not give to look once more into their faces, to feel their bodies, warm beneath our fingertips.

But no, the spaces that were theirs are vacant now, except for this river of tears and the awful sharp taste of pain.   And how we cling to our anguish, for it’s all we have left, just this, to fill the unfillable spaces.

Yet, despite our pleas – Don’t take my pain!  It’s all that I have left! - eventually the last tear dries, leaving only the space and its ringing silence and the great green breeze that we would not trade for anything, so deep and precious is its song.

Seeking a channel through which to flow, love created human hearts.  Yours, mine.  It’s up to us now.

It’s up to us to fill all the spaces with its glory, to pour it into the cracks, to smooth the gaps of forgetfulness and patch the chasms of suffering and pain.

It’s up to us to saturate the hours with its fragrance, to lift the fallen, to raise our glad so high it tingles in the treetops and kisses the stars in the sky.

It’s up to us to pump it so huge and deep and full (one smile, one touch at a time) that it sparkles in every eye and flows from every hand.

It’s up to us to sing its songs of welcome and healing.   It’s up to us to croon its tenderness, to trumpet its freedom, to glow with its patience, to dance its delight, to prove its power–until everything everywhere overflows with the joy of its infinite Yes and knows its peace.

Take time for some moments of ease in your life, some moments for letting cares go.  Few are the problems that will not wait, or benefit, from being forgotten for awhile.

Walk somewhere that you can see a tree, a flower, the broad expanse of sky.  Walk easily, as if all the time in the world was yours (for it is, you know, and you’re free to spend it as you will).

Sit on a patch of grass.  Rifle your hands through it and feel how alive it is.  Feel the soil beneath it, the stuff that gives birth to everything that sustains us.  Breathe the air; inhale its fragrances; feel its warmth.

Hear the world’s music.  The delicate rustling of leaves, the chirping of birds.  Pretend you’re a kid again: Cup your hands over your ears and roll them forward and back and listen to the sounds change and laugh at the miracle of hearing.

Look at the wondrous expanse of sky, its light veiling the cosmos.  Watch the heaped clouds, made of nothing but water, floating on the wind.

Study it all as if you were seeing it for the first time, or as if you had just been told that in two weeks you would be blind.  See the spectrum of hues and shades, the patches of light, of reflection, of shadow.  See the magnificent complexity of it all, the precision of its design—all purposeful, all pleasing.

Let it pour into you like warm honey.  Taste its sweetness.  Feel your connection to it, for this is your home.

The small pleasures, the moments of sweetness and ease, are balm for the soul.  Make time for them, and they will bring you healing and joy.

Even as we celebrate our own joy, let us offer an invocation for all who have not yet found their paths to happiness.

May all who suffer undeserved pain
(for all pain is undeserved),
who unwittingly fall into strife
(for all strife is unwitting),
who wrestle with nightmare monsters
(for all evil is an unreal masquerade)
find comfort, healing and peace.

May all who suffer misery awaken.  May all who live with falsehood find truth.  May all hardness be met with mercy and all harshness be soothed by kind hands.

May those who are caught in arrogance be humbled. May those who think themselves low find their worth.  May those who are forgotten be recognized.  May the alienated find belonging and the lonely find friends.

May our darkness give way to light, our doubt be turned to faith, our fear to strength, and our confusion to understanding.  May we be touched by grace, opened to beauty, moved by goodness and surrendered to love.

For we all are children of the universe, of the illimitable, omnipresent Yes.  May we know its truth and dance in its glad song.

Just as I pulled up to a stop light, a work van changed lanes to pull behind me.  Glancing in my rear view mirror, I was astonished to see face of a friend I hadn’t seen for many years sitting in the passenger seat and laughing with his companions.

When I knew him last, he had made some terrible choices and stumbled into a world of darkness and pain.  The thoughts of him that floated into my mind from time to time over the years dragged with them a trail of deep sadness.

Now suddenly here he was, alight with laughter on his way to a job, looking healthy and strong and well.  He wouldn’t have recognized my car or known it was me gazing through my sunglasses into the rear view mirror.  And I had only a moment to take in the glow of his smile.  But it was like the light of a thousand suns shining on my heart, and in just those few seconds, all the sorrow I had felt for him lifted and burned away.

“He’s happy!” I said to myself.  “He’s well!”

You know, that’s all we want from loved ones who have fallen into error: to know they found their bearings again, to know they’re happy.  What a healing realization the experience was for me!  Not only because the sorrow I had been carrying for my friend vanished, but because I realized that those who had seen me during my own sojourn into darkness were at peace about me now, that my smile, too, had the power to dispel all the sadness I once brought into their lives.

Finding the path to true joy is a miraculously healing thing, not only for the one who walks the path, but for all those who are touched by the light that radiates from him as well.  For the sake of all who love you, choose joy.