The poet Lucille Clifton’s says:
“I choose joy because I am capable of it, and there are those who are not.”
Life is challenging.
Many of us couldn’t wait to see the end of 2024
and I like others were longing for a new start.
Yet on New Years Day I spent time with my diary and was able to write
some memory to be grateful for, in every month.
Sometimes I think we forget the gifts and blessings and graces that come our way.
Of course for our future, there are deep concerns.
Our environment, forests, trees, rivers, oceans, desert, lakes, all are suffering:
fresh air, clean drinking water, good soil and seed are essential for life
to continue on the earth and they are all at risk.
Our animals, birds, bees, Christmas beetles and many other species are threatened. As I suggest in my recent haiku:
billabong
song of frogs
gone silent
CK
my garden
beetles, bees and bandicoots
missing
CK
And yes, the grandchildren growing up so excitedly to face their world gives me deep joy,
but I realise the warring world that they will be contending with is struggling to find a way to peace.
There are so many positive signs of people claiming peace but the petro- war and weapons machine is powerful.
Which is why we can’t give up or give in to despair.
We can feel it, but we can’t let it paralyse us.
I also think often of Gandhi’s words:
“Anything you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
And, while I’m on a roll quoting, Marcel Proust says:
“The purpose of the artist is to draw back the veil that leaves us indifferent before the universe.”
There is no room for indifference anymore Indifference is complicity in allowing inhumanity and if one person is treated inhumanely we are all in trouble.
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