Here’s an extract today from my latest book, Seize the Day – a book aimed to give hope and inspiration to people of all faiths and none during these dark months of the coronavirus pandemic. Another summer is fading into memory even as I write, the greyer days of autumn and winter stretching before us, echoed for many by how they currently feel about life. We need, more than ever at the moment, to keep a sense of summertime in our heart, of sunshine that nothing we face can quite extinguish.
Talk to me of sunshine
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life,
the whole aim and end of human existence.
Aristotle
Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.
Live in joy, in health, even among the afflicted.
Live in joy, in peace, even among the troubled.
Look within, be still, free from fear and attachment;
know the sweet joy of living in the way.
The Buddha
If I keep a green bough in my heart,
the singing bird will come.
Chinese proverb
Talk to me of sunshine,
of summer days bathed in warmth and light,
for autumn will come soon enough,
and then the long dark nights of winter,
the chill creeping into one’s bones.
life hunkered down for another season.
Talk to me of sunshine –
of blue skies and gentle breezes,
mornings full of promise and evenings that stretch out for ever,
each day rich and full –
for clouds can be quick to gather,
storms rolling in,
their downpour catching us unawares.
Talk to me of sunshine –
of lazy carefree days,
roses bursting into bloom,
nature basking in its embrace –
for the weather can swiftly change,
what had seemed set fair suddenly unsettled,
what we took for granted unexpectedly obscured.
Dwell not on the sunset,
though it is sure to come;
nor on the dusk,
though day is sure to end.
Life has enough cares and sorrows,
trauma and disappointments,
without adding to their number.
No point in letting what’s yet to be eclipse your current joys –
deal with it when you have to.
But for now,
talk to me of sunshine –
of the good things,
the special things of life –
and let its rays warm your heart.