The Gloom is but a Shadow

I don't let it sneak up on me like it used to, thankfully. Despair still comes quietly, one soft footstep at a time, one slow, seemingly innocent drip...that is followed by another. I am so weak-willed. Drip. I hate driving in this snow. Drip. I have no self-discipline. Drip. My life is so - fill_in_the_blank_with_something_negative. Depression used to paralyze me until I realized that movement alone thwarted some of the depression. Go clean the bathroom. Rest. All right, go wash the dishes. Rest. Now pick up the phone and call someone. Rest. And moment by moment despair would subside, and slowly slink away.

This morning despair came creeping up, and though I hadn't seen it in awhile, we're still well acquainted enough that I haven't forgotten its face. Do the dishes. As I stood there, my first thought was just how many dishes always seemed to need washing, and then I lamented the fact that in my adult life I've rarely had a dishwasher, and envied those who had. And then I remembered. I have a window. I used to wash dishes in an apartment with no kitchen window. I looked outside while scrubbing a plate, and saw the trees out the windowpane. Lucky me, I live on a treeline separating my mobile home park from the church behind me. Others can only look at other mobile homes. But I get to look at trees! Glorious, wonderful trees, branches bending under the winter's wind, snow curling on the ground below, a hint of light under a pewter sky, and twig's dancing in the breeze.

Radical gratitude. Life changing, life bringing.

Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. There is radiance and glory in darkness, could we but see. And to see, we have only to look. I beseech you to look!
~Fra Giovanni Giocondo