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Quote #614 - #SpringForward #SpringBack
14 Apr, 2014
"For hundreds of millions of years the seasons have told us this story again and again. The winter of doubt and fear and frustration will ultimately disappear for the whole human race. Spring will come with its promise, and summer with its fulfillment. The fundamental laws of nature: all living things constantly renew. The seasons have followed one another, never failing through all the millions of years that the solar system has been in existence. Following winter, spring has always come. The trees seem to die away. The leaves fall off, the flowers decay, but spring comes and they are renewed."
Emmett Fox
DIAGRAM FOR LIVING
I have used this quote before--in fact, I use it every year in my Passover Haggadah for the Seder. It has always offered me such hope, such faith, such belief in the cycles of life and in the process of renewal that Spring brings us every year, every year.
I don't necessarily feel anymore that it will be that way forever. Oh, yes, I'm sure that the earth will survive, ultimately, but I do not have that same abiding belief in the human race. I'm not the only one. Scientists and science fiction writers are increasingly cynical about how dystopic our future might be. In fact, the only way the earth ultimately may save itself is by getting rid of us. Blip.
You would think that awareness might make me depressed, but it also makes me incredibly grateful--grateful for the hot water that runs in my bathtub; grateful for the electricity that still fuels my kitchen, my electronics, and, yes, this computer; grateful that the air is still breathable; grateful for each day that my life is not destroyed by flood or fire or attack. I am grateful, and I know that every single day others are not so fortunate.
And I am grateful that Spring is coming, finally, after a very harsh winter--that there are buds appearing on at least some of the trees outside my window, that the seasons themselves do persist, that the ultimate cycle of our planet has not been completely destroyed.
I feel joy, I feel renewal, I do, I do, just like every Spring.
And yet . . .
I do not take it for granted anymore.
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