Creation. Butterfly & Child (July 2006) Nature helping fight sadness. “Achieving Peace of Heart” by Rev. Irala. (Apr. 2008)

Susan's Thursday morning note July 27, 2006
Butterflies and Child.  Nature fighting sadness.

Good morning all of you out there!  I wish you could see what I’m watching out in my backyard this morning.  About five minutes ago a little 5-year old whosit named Camden stumbled by in his Spiderman PJ shirt, his Cars movie PJ pants, and big cloggy tennis shoes on his feet, dragging a kids lawn chair past my table.  His eyes were still swollen, his smile barely visible.  Onward went the boy on a mission.  The sliding door opened, the little chair dragged behind him, across the wet grass…  Plop – there he sat about five feet in front of our butterfly bush.  Oops – back came the little gnome – past me with the determination of a scientist with a great mission…  oh – back past me now with a large clunky camera dangling around his neck.  Awake enough to sneak me a smile this time, with the command to me of “Shh”.  I can’t even stand how cute this is.  Yesterday morning he saw three large butterflies on this little plant as we ate breakfast.  Last nights final statement being, ” I’m going to see the butterflies when I wake up.” Just incredibly cute.  I truly believe that when God took the time to create that little plant that isn’t even the prettiest one that we picked out – he knew that the butterflies needed it, but he also knew that in the future a little boy in Aurora, NE would find extreme pleasure in observing the two creations interact.

April 17, 2008 Newsletter
Achieving Peace of Heart by Rev.  Narciso Irala

I’d like to write for you out of another book that I read from this week, Achieving Peace of Heart by Rev. Narciso Irala, S.J.  This book gives practical suggestions and medical advice for dealing with anxiety, grief, depression, exhaustion, fear, sadness.  The chapter on sadness is the one that I picked out.  Here are a few of the thoughts that you may like to also have in your mind this week.

…we should always have optimistic thoughts, happy memories, and a clear acknowledgment of God’s benefits in that treasure house of creation, human nature.  We should also increase our knowledge and cheerfully think about the inexhaustible treasures offered us in the world of color, form, and sound.  Artists usually catch a vision of all this and know how to appreciate it.  I love this part…  Our eyes are marvelously perfect cameras.  Automatically they focus upon, capture, and project into our brain living scenes in full color and three dimensions.  Our sense of hearing is like a marvelous internal musical instrument which faithfully reproduces thousands of different notes and melodies.  Our hands, arms and legs are like cranes which can execute an infinite variety of complicated movements.  In brief, our whole organism is a marvelous treasure created for us by God.  This is especially true of our memory, a library which classifies, in order, thousands of useful experiences; our understanding which continually discovers more and more of reality and will be able to understand Infinite Reality; and our will by which we are capable of union with Uncreated Goodness.

Works Cited:
Irala, Narciso.  Achieving Peace of Heart.  Ft. Collins.  Roman Catholic Books.  1956.