Tenderize the Heart

By Dorothy Denne

Dorothy’s Place is a weekly column. Southern California’s weather is daily weather. By the time this column reaches print, the weather may be the complete opposite of today. I rather hope it is.

Today is Santana clear. The mountains reach majestically into the vast azure sky, broken here and there by a sparse sprinkling of cumulus clouds.

It is hot, with predictions of getting hotter – like over 100 degrees. That is hotter alright. I do not like hot weather, especially in June. Yet, how could even I defame this beauty and peace, shared at the moment with only the call of the birds, splashing in the bird bath, and the alertness of one tiny squirrel?

Surely I am sitting at the very gates of heaven in a place far removed from the fret of getting and spending. I am truly blessed to have moments like this, when other writers are working away under some fluorescent ceiling, with no windows to gaze out and no cats in their lap. It tenderizes the heart.

Reminds me of lines from a Helen Steiner Rice verse:

We all need “short vacations”

in life’s fast and maddening race –

An interlude of quietness

from the constant, jet-age pace …

So, when your day is pressure-packed

and your hours are all too few,

Just close your eyes and meditate

and let God talk to you.

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