It Depends on Your Point of View

 This week's quote reads, "Some people feel the rain, others just get wet."

Feeling the rain... when the recent heatwave finally broke and some very welcome rain fell last Monday, I dashed outside to feel it on my face. So I guess I come into the first category.

How we respond to external stimuli depends on our state of mind, our state of heart. There is always more than one way of looking at anything: positively, negatively, or (as my DH would say) realistically. I'm a glass half-full person myself, so I tend to look on the bright side of life. Yet I recognise that this is a very privileged viewpoint: I am able to do this because I have a foundation of good things in my life to hold me up, to support me.

Each person's life is a rich tapestry of joys interwoven with sorrows. I do believe that they are inseparable, and that to feel on, you have to be open to feeling the other. And having the capacity to feel great joy and great sorrow also means that we have the capacity to love greatly. Which is surely a gift? We are living in difficult times, with terrible news breaking daily, whether it is Donald Trump bombing Iran, people starving in Gaza (and in so many other places) or the myriad species of plants and animals dying out because of our lack of care for our beleaguered planet.

Yet I also believe that there is a deep joy which comes from within us, which is not dependent on circumstances and outside events for its existence - it is a divine gift. If I may give you a personal example: the other day, I went for a walk around the fields which surround our village. The weather was beautiful. Summer was showing herself everywhere, in the ditches and the hedgerows and the fields themselves. I saw a red kite wheeling overhead, riding the thermals with such grace and majesty, and heard the pure song of a skylark. It was just gorgeous, and my heart was full of joy.

Then I came home and checked my e-mails, to find that a dear friend had died in their care home. My bubble of joy burst, and I was filled with sorrow by the news of their passing.

And yet, the fact that I had been open to the joy of the surrounding natural world helped me to be able to cope with the sorrow I felt. Without the one, the other would have hit me a lot harder. I do believe that if we live our lives vulnerably, at a deep spiritual level, feeling the rain rather than simply getting wet, we become more resilient to sorrow, as we are more open to joy.