Our treatment of this month’s theme is selective, arbitrary, and probably unbalanced. But it made us feel good to do it; if reading it makes you feel better, acknowledge it in your own manner — sing in the streets (one hears it rarely); dance, when you can make the chance; kiss the face in the mirror. It’s a love you can be sure of.
Saying yes to ourselves is the key to well-being. This doesn’t mean saying yes to every experience, or accepting, unthinkingly, everything which comes our way. It means realizing that we make our own reality, and affirming our own uniqueness, and the basic grace of our being.
Saying yes is the key, but there are many doors. It bears emphasizing. Spiritual idealogues, even the most beatific, tell a different story. So do the true believers of every fold. Their certainty is a false, but furious, wind; it whips us, and leaves its mark — wars fought over “principle” are the worst, and as long as the well-being of one nation, or religion, or idea is revered more than life itself, we need side with life, and its mystery and ambiguity and miracle.
There are more doors than are suggested here. Reflect upon them. The circumstance of rooms. The light from the window. The hallways stretching endlessly away. The air, in and around, and the fire, and the flesh. Those who would guide us, and those who watch. The thinness of walls. The laughter.
Open any door.
— Sy
