HOW THE PENDULUM SWINGS

 

Have you ever noticed how life is like a pendulum…swinging to and fro..

continuously moving between opposing forces…wherever we choose to go?

As I look out on the world…at this constant fluctuation…this unbroken sway

It seems to me our heart beats to the rhythm of this pendulum every day.

We come, we go…we give…we take…sometimes we win…sometimes we fail.

We sleep, we wake, we laugh, we cry…we breathe in…we exhale.

We are at war, we are at peace…we create, we destroy…we agree, we disagree.

We feel sorrow, we feel joy…we are a friend, we are an enemy.

It matters not how we are brought up, how wealthy we are, or to whatever faith we happen to be clinging…it matters not if we’d like it to stop…the pendulum just keeps swinging.

Sometimes we know the length of its arc…like from sunrise to sunset…

while other swings are more erratic…like from when we hurt someone…to regret.

Sometimes the pendulum swings away to quickly…like when we think we’ve reached perfection….other times, like after a death, it slowly moves in one direction. 

Most of the time we have no control over its distance or its flight…and the best that we can do is climb aboard and hold on tight.

If we’re lucky along the way we find pleasure in the glide…and we can sit back, throw our hands up in the air, close our eyes and enjoy the ride.

All the while hoping when the pendulum swings to sorrow we will not lose our smile…

and praying when it swings to joy…it will linger there a while.