Happy Monday, All!
Now, I know that between all the students and the people who may be retired and living on pensions or other retirement funds, somebody out there is happy to see Monday … just because they can! Are you one of those people?!? Or are you still ungrateful that it is …. sum .. sum … summertime!?! Well, I am ecstatic for summer breezes and the warm air they bring! Fridays after work, I have started this routine of going over to the Ft. Lauderdale Beach near the basketball courts where there are picnic tables and lots of seaside fauna … palm trees and those “grape leaf” looking clumps of foliage. The sounds of the ocean’s waves lapping up on the shore line is so calming and peaceful … om shanti!
Schools are out, including colleges and universities, and students are choosing activities as well as parents setting up their children with summer programs. Back home in White Plains, NY when summer hit, it was a lot of buzz going on around the Winbrook Apartments and the downtown areas. As a child, maybe 10 years old give or take a few years, I was enrolled in two weeks of sleep-away summer camp at Mountain Lakes Camp in “upstate” New York. While I have enjoyed camping, I must confess that I prefer the ocean-side ambiance, the warm air there … and at night fall, you can drift off into a comfortable sleep out there … if you are not careful!! How bad can that be?!!
Sure, our world is going through a lot of man-made as well as natural crises! Our individual journeys interconnect sometimes, and that is when we have an opportunity to share our journey with others. There are many of us who still struggle on this planet, in spite of all the natural resources available to ALL of us on the planet Earth!! Has greed and callousness taken over core human values like sharing and peacefulness? Apparently so! When I was just a young lad, so to speak, I often enjoyed what many called “looking at things through rose colored glasses”! There are many situations, quite often, that challenge our ability to find “the good” in circumstances … in people … in our lives. Yet, never forget that we should each take some time for ourselves, to nurture our natural qualities … those good ones, of course!! Take some time to reach out to others during this season of vacation and fun … keep it simple if you can. If you are able to keep yourself calm in tough times and enjoy the journey, your life will be much more simplistic, harmonious …. peaceful even.
Take some time for yourself, my friends, to enjoy the journey during “Summer Time”!
Peace,
John I. Cook, Director
