Good Morning Sunshine! AH! Well!____.

I say, “Ah! Well!” Because I opened up to the following Chapter in Joyce Hifler’s book “To every Thing There Is A Season”___. Chapter 5. “A time to weep, and a time to laugh___. This describes me at this time of mourning my Thomas. The beginning reads as follows: “The best of life to you, my dear__may all your dreams come true__And though you planet hop, my dear__your friends will not be few__ You effervescent smile, my dear__is your pass to everywhere___no matter where you go, my dear___you will never have a care___So pack your bag with joys, my dear__and scatter them as you go.___There are riches there for you, my dear__at the end of the next rainbow___ Climb aboard the wings, my dear___survey your world and sigh__but never say good-by, my dear___or I am apt to cry!” And so I shall I know. But love and laughter filled our heads and hearts, our life. Though it was not without its sadness and losses. But this happiness made up for all the rest. It give comfort now.

This chapter continues. “Can I pray that my children will never have reason to cry? Is it wisdom to wish them that?” I think we need to cry at times, spend quiet times with our emotional self. I spent to many years protecting myself from hurt. A counselor once gave me a list of “feeling words” and I was instructed to think on these words and to feel them! I burst into tears at the idea least I be vulnerable. But I did not get vulnerability! I found strength and insights I did not expect! I learned how to be accountable to me before I was towards others. Hifler continues: “I remember some of my own tears. I have cried because someone loved me, because I loved someone, because I was not loved. I have cried in anguish, in fear, in illness, but most gloriously when I realize I am not alone in my private world. I have something that neutralizes bitterness and cleanses from my mind and heart the scars and smudges that have caused me to cry.

Tears are the soul and I had if I had never cried I would not know the depths of my being or the purification of even the memory of times and circumstances that have ruled with unbending fury.

I have cried from relief just knowing a tremendous burden has been lifted, felt the tension and rigidity of something that was not faith being dissolved away.

Joy and releif are something too deep for laughter and cannot be quieted by adding more joy but only by weeping them back to livingness.

To cry for pain or illness or frustration is not an emotion that heals or that comes from any real depths. Only a calming peacefulness can give relief, a peace that comes from letting go to faith, It is necessary to rise above the emotions and not let them dominate until hysteria rules. They are God’s own purifying force capable of greatness. O that I should be so foolish to ask never to let my children cry, but only that it be more for love and joy than for sadness”.

I shall stop here. I wish you the very best of wishes! Pejj Nunes 10/19/20220