Q: If April showers bring may flowers, what do may flowers bring?

A: Pilgrims! (Sorry, couldn’t resist that one.)

Blame it on Mercury coming out of retrograde, but the universal energy lately has been a little funky. Perhaps it’s due to distant saber-rattling from Russia and South Korea, or our President’s drug-friendly son being indicted today on illegal gun charges, or maybe it’s just the fact that autumn is a week away. Regardless, I feel something in the air, and that a little grounding may be necessary.

This morning’s group session focused on negative beliefs, and the tools (ie. thoughts and actions) we engage to help remediate them. This had me thinking on the paradox and distinctions of good times versus bad. Of course, we all experience both, but I have to recall looking at them this way: discomfort is unavoidable, but suffering is a choice.

Herein lies a good opportunity, dear readers, to assimilate some of our common themes previously covered in these posts, namely; mindful verses, both Biblical and lyrical, sweetened with slices of poetry, jazz and a dash of wisdom.

I like to say that we don’t necessarily find uplifting precepts, but instead very often they find us. This is certainly true with divine passages brought to our reading and prayer circles, both in jail and in rehab. When poor decisions lead us into capivity, encouraging words are a comfort as we work toward repentance and release. A perfect example comes from 1 Corinthians 10:13:

“There hath no temptation taken you but what is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able; but with the temptation, will also make the way that you are able to bear it.”

One of our circle readers, recently blessed by moving on from the house, shared before he left another apt quotation, from Romans 5: 3-4:

“We glory in tribulation also, for we know that tribulations worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.”

Thus, we aren’t necessarily gluttons for punishment, but rather arbiters of hope. C.S. Lewis puts a different spin on it, saying that no temptation is overcome until we stop trying to overcome it; and no man knows how bad he is until he tries very hard at being good. (From Mere Chrisitianity, chapters 11 and 12, both entitled “Faith.”)

Don’t you just love when you find that a favorite line or lyric has a really cool origin? As I sat down tonight with notebooks open looking for thematic inspiration, I thought of the refrain, “into each life, some rain must fall.” Ray Charles sings it in “Drown In My Own Tears” and Ella Fitzgerald with the the Ink Spots had a 1944 hit of the same name. But the unflappable internet won again, as hence I discovered the original sentiment was in fact penned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his poem ‘The Rainy Day’:

“Be still sad heart! And cease repining;

Behind the clouds, is the Sun still shining;

Thy fate is the common fate of all,

For into each life, some rain must fall…” (1842.)

Let’s close with another humdinger of an insight I’ve been saving for such a post as this, from the most captivating (and previously praised) novel I read on the jail tablet. Nothing was lost in translation when Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo was lovingly printed in English, and this deep reflection, written by the Count during his long incarceration, was neither lost on me:

“Misfortune is needed to bring to light the treasures of the human intellect. Captivity has brought my mental faculties to a focus; as from the collision of clouds produces electricity; from electricty comes lightning; from lightining comes illumination.”