Joy - and Peace

When the world seems to have gone around the bend, when I look around me and know that there's so much I can't do, so much I don't have, so much that's wrong and I can't fix it ... it can get more than a little disheartening ... 

On the other hand, lots of the time I end up looking around me, and inside of me for something, anything, to give me hope. Lo and behold, there's always something there. Maybe not much of something, but still ... enough to make something.

That, my friend, brings Joy, and it brings Peace.

There are things I can't do physically, intellectually, spiritually ... lots and lots of them. There are things I don't have the money to tend to the way I would like, lots and lots of them. There are things I don't own and never will. There are times I'm hungry or cold or miserable. There are people I don't see enough of, and people I may never get to see, and people I will never see again in this life. There are places, as with people, I don't see, may never see, won't see again ... There's stuff going on in our great green world that will turn our green to dark if we don't watch out.

And yet ... sometimes when I'm feeling the most down there will come to me a warm embrace, like a strong hug from Someone who loves me despite all. Here is Peace, I seem to hear. Make something of it.

And yet ... in the darkest of dark a tiny flicker will catch my eye for an instant only. What was that? Was it real? Where did it go? Oh, there it is again. Here is Hope, I seem to hear. Make its light stronger.

And yet ... into the depth of my utter loneliness will come a Voice, perhaps from a far distance, perhaps from near to hand, and I am blessed with an unexpected gift. Here is Friendship, I seem to hear. Let it in.

And yet ... and yet ... and yet ... all of the Circles of Dunnottar come one by one, turn and turn about to bring their gifts: Faith, Family, Friends, Freedom, the Future ... just when they are most needed. They didn't spring from my imagination; they've been gifting me, and you for that matter, all along.

So too the Voices of SONG: Choice, the Spiral, Peace, Faith, Healing, Hope, Love ... they aren't just parts of the fiction I write - they are parts of the books because they have been first parts of each and all of us.

I write because it is in me to do so - and out it must come whether I would will it or no. Perhaps there may be only one person in the entirety of this world for whom the words are meant; perhaps that one person is yet unborn. That is not for me to know. What is for me is to do - to do the best I can with what I have to work with at any given time.

When despair is but a heartbeat away ... I look around me, and inside of me, and make a Choice. To make something or to not make something out of what I find, no matter how small or insignificant.

And comes Joy, comes Peace ... and all the rest of it.

It doesn't necessarily have to be 'good enough' for the rest of the world. It has only to be the best I can do, and that's good enough.