Lenten Day Twenty-five: George Santayana

March 9, 2024

“The world is not respectable; it is mortal, tormented, confused, deluded forever; but it is shot through with beauty, with love, with glints of courage and laughter; and in these, the spirit blooms.”  George Santayana

On day twenty-five of Lent, this quotation comes from the front of a notecard my daughter sent me years ago when she left to work in the Rocky Mountains for a summer.  I’ve had the card sitting in a glass front cabinet ever since then and it still hasn’t quit speaking to me, hasn’t quit reminding me of the reality of shadows and light.

I admit that I have lived with an inclination to dwell more often on the shadows, pointed out to me long ago by a very wise therapist who suggested that I tend to see the world in shades of brown.  There are, she said, other colors to notice.  Even now, my sister tells me my wardrobe resembles a desert, and I’ve always used earth tones to decorate my home.  But now I notice the pop of yellow daffodils in a vase, the scarlet throw pillows, the emerald green blanket that I add to remind me of the light, of joy, of surprise.

Our current world is, indeed, tormented, confused, and deluded, just as it was in Santayana’s time (philosopher, 1863-1952).  He lived through two World Wars which his quotation “Only the dead have seen the end of war” reflects.   It is so easy to allow ourselves to get sucked into and mired in the shadows.  Just turn on any news station or read the headlines.  Living there in brown can become habitual.  Yet there are, indeed, other “colors”—the colors of beauty (a cedar waxwing I saw atop a bare tree this morning); the colors of love (waking up beside my husband after all these years); the colors of courage (those who reflect light in so many terrible situations); the colors of laughter (enjoying the spontaneous antics of my two cats).

“I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life that you may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19).  We can choose where to place our focus and our energy.  Even while the shadows exist, we can live in, and reflect, the light.

Blessings ~ Rosemary

Today

Today, a pregnant woman across the world
worries about giving birth in the midst of
a sniper-laden war zone.
I walk past a quince bush birthing
blooms in mellow tangerine.
Today, another young girl,
another young boy,
is sold into slavery, trafficking
and delivered
into the unspeakable.
I bend to lift
the shy lavender face of
a Lenten rose
from the dirt and raise it
to the sun.
Today, the fidgeting murmurs of
nuclear war whisper over
a ruler-straight horizon while
plump pink bulbs
like fat red robins
perch on a silent magnolia tree.
Today, raging rebels overturn
poor governments
on distant islands
and desperate families
try to flee.
I notice the purple sapphires
crowning the slender silver limbs
of the redbud.
A Mexican man, trimming trees,
stops his work to chat with
me as I take my morning
walk. He is earning money
to go back home
next year to the cerulean
waters of the Caribbean
while the vortexes
of green-striped hosta
begin
the unwinding
of hope, and
the copper-colored dog
wags its tail
on the other side
of the invisible
fence.

© Rosemary McMahan