CowPi Journal

Our memories play tricks on us. We label moments and episodes in our pasts as either happy or sad, joyous or painful. In reality, the joy and the sorrow exist simultaneously. One of them just seems to dominate over the other in that particular memory.

Joy and sorrow does not flip on or off like a light switch. Here is a moment of joy, and now here is another moment of sorrow. No, it does not work like that, not like how our memory thinks of it.

Joy and sorrow are more like the two rails in a railroad track. They run parallel, side-by-side throughout every moment of our lives. If we reflect on a moment as being particularly joyful, it is because we are favoring or leaning more of our weight on the rail of joy. When we feel sorrow, most of our weight is leaning on the rail of sorrow. In both cases, in every moment of our lives, we have a foot on both rails.

The thing is, sometimes we lean so far over onto the rail of sorrow, it seems like we will never be able to shift our weight back to the center, let alone to the side of joy. Our muscles seem to cramp that way, not allowing us to straighten up.

All the while, our other foot is still on the rail of joy. Little things go by, practically unnoticed because we are stooped over, focused on the pain and our cramped muscles. Little things like a smile from a child, a friend, or a stranger, the blue sky and the warmth of the sun on our face, a cool breeze that brushes the hair off our forehead like mom used to do when we were ill, the busy little pitter-patter of humanity as it rushes by us on a city street or in a crowded hallway, hearing the singing of a bird or our favorite song on the radio, the smell of rain or baking bread or perfume. All of these little joys in life are God’s whispers to us, telling us that it isn’t so bad. I am still with you. All you have to do is take notice. Don’t let the sorrow close your heart. Open it back up. Take a risk. Reach out. Shift our weight ever so slightly. That is all it takes. Just a little shift…

A double rainbow in the early morning from about two weeks ago.

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

— Genesis 9:12-16

I never liked the rain until
    I walked through it with you
Every thunder cloud that came
    was one more I might not get through
On the darkest day there’s always light
    and now I see it too
But I never liked the rain until
    I walked through it with you

I hear it falling in the night
    and filling up my mind
All the heaven’s rivers come to light
    and I see it all unwind
I hear it talking through the trees
    and on the window pane
And when I hear it I just can’t believe
    I never liked the rain

Like the rain I have fallen for you
    and I know just why you
Liked the rain always calling for you
    I’m falling for you now
Just like the rain

— Clint Black

The best love songs always work on many levels…