Why is it that beauty is so fleeting and ugly so durable? For example: yesterday, clouds built up in the west.  Grey and menacing, they threatened and grew all through the hours of the afternoon and early evening heralding storms.  Then, just at sunset for no more than ten minutes, the sky put on a show of colors that included a rainbow in addition to pinks and oranges and a tinge of red. Stunning, awesome.  Another example: since we bought our house, I’ve been watching two poppy plants slowly stick their heads above the snow, then unfurl their fuzzy leaves.  It’s taken a month for the plant’s buds to form and swell and finally open.  But the flowers, gorgeous and happy, last no more than a day or two before the petals wither and fall off.  Clearly, transitory beauty is part of nature. 

I think I could be alright with how quickly beauty comes and goes if ugly acted the same way.  Instead, ugly lingers. Ugly holds on, persists. Weeds and storm clouds enjoy longevity.  Angry or mean words resonate in our memories much longer and louder than complements and kindnesses.  Laughter fades but pain endures.  Good choices we make are often overshadowed by the consequences of the bad. Being mired by ugly just doesn’t seem fair. 

Okay – before this blog starts being too cliché and you start hearing Julie Andrews singing “My favorite Things” in the background, I’ll wrap it up. Here’s my final thought: Since it seems to be fact that beauty doesn’t last long, then wouldn’t it be grand if we all decided to make a concerted effort to create and share beautiful more often throughout our days?  Then, even though each individual moment wouldn’t last long, there’d be more of them. Net gain!

I’m not blogging today. I’m not blogging today because I’ve been writing for the last five hours and my fingers are tired. My tired fingers and I are really excited, though, because I’ve just today, within the last half hour, finished my next novel! Yup. Done. Well, not really. The story is complete with beginning, middle and end. But. It needs editing. Lots of editing. Tuned and sanded, smoothed, and polished. And a title. I’ve got some ideas but no title yet. All of this isn’t hampering my little celebration for the day. The draft is done. Yay!

In my childhood, right and wrong were starkly delineated. Black and white.  In my parent’s home, there was no middle ground, and when I tried to introduce a grey point, my mother’s answer was inevitable, “What’s right is right, no matter how bad it hurts.”

I don’t recall her ever explaining what she meant, I just knew.  Doing the right thing wasn’t always easy or enjoyable or what I wanted, but it was the only valid path because it was right. My life made sense, it was safe. (This isn’t to say that I didn’t make mistakes and wrong choices, I certainly did, and I was often in trouble and on the outs with my mom, but I always knew why.)

Because of their unwavering belief of absolutes, my childhood was actually very simple.  Two choices, no more. 

Life now is so much more complicated. Our world doesn’t operate on a two-choice system. Diversions in the path aren’t simple forks. Choices abound, and each choice is advertised as a viable alternative – no matter how destructive or counter intuitive.  When people like me (who subscribe to a belief system that still embraces the two-choice philosophy), share our thoughts, we are dismissed as outdated and out of touch at best, and often labeled as haters even when the underlying emotion isn’t hate but fear, shock, or confusion instead. 

I long for the simplicity my parents’ outlook provided me.   And honestly, I think others do also.  It seems to me, in observing our world’s current state, that multi-forked paths have led us not into the city of enlightenment or villages of increased satisfaction but instead we’ve become lost in soggy marshes of uncertainty and mired in deeper and deeper despair. We’ve turned to all kinds of destructive and attention-getting tactics to combat our increased anguish.  But to no avail. We blame religion, gun ownership, drugs, political parties, our government – we blame and we blame.  Maybe all we need to do is bring back the concept of right and wrong, then make the right choices.  Maybe the answer is as simple as the words a timid housewife taught me so many years ago. What is right is right, no matter how bad it hurts.

I mentioned a while back that I have a nephew, Nick, who was very suddenly stricken with numbness and paralysis from the chest down.  He’s in a battle to reteach his legs to walk. The rehab is going to take a significant amount of time and his resolve to stay focused and daring during arduous marathons of therapy are demanding more strength and courage than I’m sure I have. As if it weren’t enough, he faces another test of his bravery and strength each day as well – that of continuing to be a husband and a father and engaging in each day even though life has been unfair to him and changed so much in the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee. I saw pictures yesterday of Nick playing catch with his children.  In many ways that activity, smiling and laughing while throwing and catching a ball from his wheelchair in a hospital corridor may have taken more pluck than anything else.  Choosing to stay positive and carrying on isn’t for sissies when the going gets tough. I admire him and his family for how they are walking this awful journey. 

Courage is an unpredictable and sometimes skittish creature. I picture my own courage almost mouse-like: small and furry, timid often but with unexpected moments of ferocity. I think my bravery is small and not very mighty.  For me, it’s so easy to focus on the fear and be ruled by that instead of calling up my nerve.  What I’m learning though, is that courage abounds when I make myself take the first step.  Courage multiplies and solidifies with each step as long as I keep moving forward. Think Daniel in the lion’s den.   No doubt he was panicked when the door slammed shut. He could smell the musky scent of the lions, feel their body heat and hear them nearby. He may have thought if he stood still enough they wouldn’t notice him.  But then, when he didn’t feel the tear of their teeth, maybe he turned around.  Maybe he stood there a long time just staring into the eyes of the huge cat in front of him.  Perhaps, when the animal cocked his head to study the strange creature in front of him, Daniel had just enough daring to reach out his hand. (He could have been thinking, “Okay, if he’s going to eat me at least I will find out if his mane is really as soft as it looks.”)  And that’s my point.  God didn’t let them eat Daniel and he survived, but maybe, just maybe Daniel was meant to do more than just survive. Maybe his courage helped him turn around and reach out.  Maybe he and the cats spent the night playing something more fun than cat and mouse.  Isn’t that what God wants for us?  Life “more abundantly”?  We can live our life cowering, using only the bare essentials of courage and strength, or we can choose to reach out, take that step out of the boat, let go of our lost dreams or current troubles, and play ball.