Mornings like this once inspired the urge to pull the covers up and over one’s head and prepare to miss school for the day. Dark and bitter cold, it just isn’t fit for “man nor beast” as W.C. Fields would opine.
Of course, depending on where you live, it is really quite a bit more severe than here in East Texas. But fond memories of those days still linger and allow one to experience a taste of a little illegitimate absence.
Not much is like it was then, though. There is a flood of people having to stay home today. They are out of work, and running out of options. They worry over their prospects and their children and their next month’s payment for the house, the car, and other outstanding debts. What a luxury it would be to pull the covers up and just go back to sleep. Pulling them up these days is more like avoiding the day altogether. There is too much out there waiting to be met. There are too many indicators that unemployed David will meet the Goliath of despair.
David was able to slay his demons with a simple rock and a flimsy slingshot. This time it will take an army with more than rocks and slingshots to stand down the enemy of discouragement and despondency.
Where do we begin? Mine is not to flood you with worn clichés and feed you the pablum of platitudes. We need more than that. A lot more.
To tell you the truth, most everywhere you look there is more bad news. If there is good news, it is buried so far under the ice and snow and torrent of daily reports that even being up enough to read or watch takes enormous courage.
Surrendering to a morning like this won’t change one iota of the starkness of the day ahead.
A slight crevice of good news seems to break through the overcast skies. At least, these days many have the option to search the Internet for jobs, make follow up phone calls to see where your resume is at the moment, stay in touch with friends and others who may supply you with leads. Spend some time trying to bolster your own self confidence and optimism. Am I nearing the borders of platitudes and clichés? I am sorry, but about the best I can do is offer some common sense.
Rollo May, in his wonderful volume “Love and Will,” shared this insight, “Care is given power by nature’s sense of pain; if we do not care for ourselves we are hurt, burned, injured…our responsibility is to cease letting care be solely a matter of nerve endings…Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.”
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