Oh, Happiness

Yes, happiness. If you've seen the picture, which you surely have by now, you might be wondering why a dandelion of all things is chosen. It's a boring, commonplace weed that ruins your lawn. Your perfect garden is now ruined by this intrusion.

As a child, I hated it when people pulled up dandelions. I was told such things as, 'They're untidy.' and 'They ruin the lawn. Don't you want nice grass to play on?'

Ummm... no. I'd much rather had the dandelions, thank you very much. I love their complexity. It's fascinating, all those yellow petals against lush green. Then they magically, or so it appears, turn into little fairies umbrellas which floated away in the breeze.

Anyway, I chose the dandelion as a comparison for happiness because, I deem it the flower most looked down upon, most despised, most under valued flower ever.
But it's the most cheerful.

Look at it, really look, with no prejudice. Doesn't it lighten the heart? When you step outside and see all the little glints of gold and silver amongst the green doesn't it make you smile? At least on the inside anyway.

We humans have taken away the beauty of it. Why? I don't know. Somewhere we began labeling it as a nuisance and began to forget the beauty that belongs to it. And even though we continue to uproot it, tear at it and make a general fuss over getting rid of it, it always comes back, as though trying to prove that we need to remember the beauty of life, instead of insisting it's all gone wrong, just cause there is a dandelion cheering up our lawn. Like we can't bear to see the cheerful golden head blowing in the breeze.

How sometimes, the sight of a smiling face sends us into the darkest regions of our soul. How if we are down, we can't bear others to be happy, so we try bring them down to our level of sadness, instead of raising ourselves out of our sorrows, we would much rather make another miserable.

I'm guilty of it.

So, I've decided to try be a dandelion. To be as happy as possible, to find the best in every situation. To get back up when I've been hacked to pieces. To bear through my times of sorrow with perseverance, knowing that it shall all get better. That there will be another flower of gold, always, somewhere.

Here's the link to Oh Happiness, a song by David Crowder*band. One of my favourites.

Beauty

A thing of beauty is a joy forever: its loveliness increases;
it will never pass into nothingness. - John Keats

I was walking along today, actually it was more like storming, down the riverbank, when a revelation hit me, as though I'd run into a brick wall and I actually staggered backwards at what it implied. You see, my thoughts had been far from happy. (If you hadn't gathered that already from the 'storming' part) Thinking about moving and people I know. It was at dusk and rather cold so no one was out and I could let my face pull all sorts of interesting expressions. I was just on the verge of crying when I remembered that God (By the way, I'm a Christian!) had said he would always be there whenever we need Him. So I prayed, 'Please help me, cause I can't do this anymore!' The words were still echoing in my head when, as soft as a summer's breeze, I heard some more.

"There is beauty in everything."

Which was accompanied by a nice fuzzy feeling. God had answer my prayer! And fast too. With a lighter heart and feet, I continued on my way.

Here are some pictures of beautiful objects that I have taken over time.
Cherry blossoms and winters snow.Light.




Even street lights have some beautiful, if not strange, quality about them.





I took this one today, at the end of my walk.