Catching Idle Butterflies

The Gift of Laughter and Boxed Wisdom

This is in response to jspinelli’s comment in the previous entry. I liked it so much I want to share it with you:

Can I say it's good to be back?

Honestly, until I logged in and read all the thoughtful comments and emails I didn't think so. I'm learning the toughest battles are the ones worth fighting, not the easy ones.

Though right now, with time and distance, my perspective has widened some, and I'm thinking perhaps this wasn't such a tough battle. Emotions tend to explode circumstances beyond what they actually are.

But that's part of being human, so we endure, get through it, look back, learn a few things, and perhaps laugh at ourselves.

That's a good thing. All trials and tribulations should end with laughter.

The best laughter of all is that of a child. For eight days, I basked in the laughter of my 22-month-old nephew, Will. I love the way his fat cheeks crinkled his eyes, his mouth as wide as could be as that high-pitch giggle waved through the entire house. When he smiled and giggled at me, though, that felt like God Himself smiling and giggling at me.

They left yesterday, and the house is a tad too quiet. Someday, I think to myself (verses what, thinking to my husband? ), someday this house will be filled with a child’s laugh again.

Losing my voice to a cold (yes, Hubby is grinning right now), I purchased a box of Celestial Seasonings Echinacea wellness tea. Like many of their teas, they add a few paragraphs of wisdom on one side of the box. I loved the one on this. Wellness indeed, because this really vitalized my spirit:

THE ART OF GIVING
by Kent Nerburn
Letters to My Son

Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say why some fields will blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun.

Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made.

And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how it is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.