Go out with Joy

Lethargy mocks your attempts to work. Loathing nit-picks like a research tech. Anxiety bites off its muzzle. Depression bangs its tin cup on your cell bars.

Gaze out against the skyline. Can you see it? The edges of winter-bleached trees have taken on a haze of green.

Now look near you. One of those giant skeletons is beckoning. Go ahead, grasp a low-hanging branch, and the distant lime smudge will come into focus. New individual buds break out from their bony props in search of energy.

Clasp a twig of buds in your palm. How like a infant’s fingers they are, small and vulnerable still to cold and frost. Yet every digit extends fully to the elements in reach for the sun. Not long now the fingers will unroll their banners and wave you into Spring.

For as the rain comes down,

and the snow from heaven,

and do not return there,

but water the earth,

and make it bring forth and bud,

that it may give seed to the sower

and bread to the eater,

So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;

It shall not return to Me void,

but it shall accomplish what I please,

and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

For you shall go out with joy,

and be led out with peace;

the mountains and the hills

shall break forth into singing before you,

and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

(Isa. 55:10-12)

Seeing while Blind

The Kingdom of heaven is like a woman who owned a show horse.

She raised him to be a “dressage” horse, specially trained in obedience and precision of movement. Soon after he began to learn the art, the horse contracted a severe infection that nearly killed him and left him completely blind. The doctors told the woman her only options were to let him out to a treeless pasture or put him down. She did neither. Instead she determined to train him to the highest level of dressage possible.

“How was this going to work practically?” the woman wondered. The horse could not tell what she wanted or where she wanted him to go. He was terrified to leave his familiar stall. She thought to herself, “There is only one way I am able to communicate with my horse. I will be still inside myself and watch his body language. I will understand what makes him tick and attend to his fears, needs, comforts, and personal quirks.”

Thus, from within her quietness and patience, she led him, one stumbling step at a time, out of his stall.

Once she had taught the horse to walk around the arena without panicking or falling down on his front legs, she determined to ride him. Although after a few steps forward he could not maintain his equilibrium and went to his knees, the woman stayed on the horse and calmly leaned back until he again got up. Then they continued at a painstakingly slow pace, building the foundation for a life-long team effort.

Over the course of many years the two developed a very close relationship, and one day the woman realized her horse was ready for more challenge. It was time to prepare him to reach her dream that he be a dressage horse. At the beginning, his moves were not at all beautiful. As would always be the case, the horse’s two main challenges were to keep his balance and accept the woman’s assurance.

Finally, the horse was ready to go to the equestrian festival. His relationship to the woman was so secure that although the noise of horses, riders, and shouting trainers swirled around them, he kept his composure and listened only to her. Once the competition began, horse and rider continued to focus completely on one another’s signals, a habit that continued through one competition after another. By the end of the season, he had developed his skill to such a degree that he won one of his classes.

It all came down to trust, the woman said.¹

¹ Story source is from Jeanette Sassoon at http://www.valianttrust.org/. See also http://blindhorses.org/ and http://blog.rollingdogranch.org/.