Saturday, March 12, 2016

Be still, I am content

I appreciated the sense of humor that the class had.  "A sense of humor is so valuable" I told them.  "The older we get, life can get more sucky.  With a sense of humor, we will be able to laugh them away" I told them.

I have no pretensions that anybody cared for what this most interesting old man had to say. The few students who want to engage with me find that I am a happy guy who laughs at his own jokes even when they are about him.

The silly happiness, I have come to realize, lies on a foundation of contentment.  A peaceful sense of contentment even when I drown in my own sorrows. Even when I read, and blog about, depressing Russian literature.

I wondered whether a poem might say all these and more.  Well, not about the sense of humor but about feeling content.

I went to my go-to-site for poems.  A link there "poems for women's history month." I was reminded of the female poet's verse that we read back in high school.

I scanned the poems.  I read a couple.  I felt like the women poets were letting me down.

And then I came across this one. Perfect!



Yes, "Be still, I am content ... joy [is] a flame in me"


  

5 comments:

Anne in Salem said...
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Sriram Khé said...
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Anne in Salem said...
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Ramesh said...

May you always be contended !

By the way, delighted to see Rob & Sara as regular commenters now. Glad to get to "know you" through this forum Rob & Sara. With Mike and Anne also commenting, thoughtful commenters outnumber the irreverent ones 3 to 1 :)

Sriram Khé said...

I am glad that Sara is visiting here now because she is way, way, way left of me and will take on you three who love the "right" even when you know it is "wrong" ;)
I wish the other occasional commenters also would join in ... long time since we heard from the Kiwi, the uber-respectful Mahesh, Zack, and, as the King of Siam said, etc., etc., etc. ;)