Dear friends,
Sometimes we seek happiness in the future days and beauty in far-off places.
Places where the distant hills are always green and where the skies are always blue.
This ever-elusive place that you could call if-only land.
If only we had this or that.
If only we were somewhere else.
So many if-onlys.
A hymn written more than a hundred years ago,
By Minot Judson Savage,
Reminds us that beauty and happiness are all about us.
Seek not afar for beauty,
Lo it glows,
In dew-wet grasses all about thy feet,
In birds,
In sunshine,
Childish faces sweet,
In stars and mountain summits topped with snows.
Go not abroad for happiness,
For see it is a flower blooming at thy door.
Bring love and justice home,
And then no more Thou wilt wonder in what dwelling joy may be.
Dream not of noble service elsewhere wrought.
The simple duty that awaits thy hand is God's voice uttering divine command.
Life's common deeds build all that saints have taught.
In wonder-workings or some bush aflame,
Men look for God and fancy him concealed.
But in earth's common things he stands revealed,
While grass and flowers and stars spell out his name.
Namaste.
