Meditation in Eastertide ~ Wednesday, Week 7: ONLY a Smile?

May 15, 2024 ~ Wednesday, Week 7

It was only a smile,

and little it cost in the giving,

but like morning light

it scattered the night

and made the day worth living.

~ Anonymous* 

    How rapidly the darkness of a storm is diminished by the wonder of a rainbow. No matter how many times I’ve seen one, it is as the hope of Noah, the smile of God, the moment of respite in a storm of life. The Oh! Look! on everyone’s lips when the gleaming colors appear as if an apparition, a token of Creation’s brilliance, a moment when smiles illuminate faces otherwise clouded with anxiety, anger, despair, or just plain general disinterest in everything around them. Who can resist a rainbow?

   A smile to a passerby, in a grocery line, an elevator, especially with a hello, can be a rainbow in someone’s day. It is for me when my head is in a storm or distracted by cranky people, or on a day when I am moving too fast in a cloud of oblivion. A simple smile from another breaks in like a rainbow, quieting my internal thunder, and reminds me to pass it on.

 

Lord of the Dark and Deep, 

     As I walk alone and quickly through the streets of the city with eyes downcast or, stroll in a solitary ponder on the beach looking out at the sea, or wander with my cart through the aisles of the supermarket lost in my own if-only thoughts, suddenly a stranger says, Hello, smiles, and moves on. The bigger surprise is that this small action expects no response. The place I'm in becomes immediately brighter and I feel enveloped in a circle of warmth that is almost the light and colors of a rainbow in my soul; my return smile is automatic and sincere, if unseen.

     In receiving a smile unexpectedly and from an equally unexpected source, I whisper a prayer of thanks for the one who smiled. In offering a smile to another that is unexpected, I return the gift to Creation. Guide me, Lord, to always remember to receive and give a moment of warmth that will lighten up all around, and always intended in Your Name. amen.

*While often attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald [1896-1940], the poem has been found to be published in a variety of similar forms as early as 1893, none with attribution. As brilliant a writer as Fitzgerald has been proclaimed, he likely wasn’t able to have written much of anything before he was actually born and perhaps not until a bit of time after that.    

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