The enthusiasm meter

You never know what wisdom might come your way at the monastery breakfast table. Today was just another example. I was commenting on the way the weather influences how people feel and one of the older Sisters didn’t miss a beat. She said, “You know for me, the weather outside rarely gets to me.” And laughingly she added, “Now the weather inside is another whole story.”

It immediately made me think of a comment I read in one of Anthony DeMello’s books, One Minute Wisdom. The entry was entitled "Enthusiasm.”

To the woman who complained that riches hadn’t made her happy

the Master said, “You speak as if luxury and comfort were ingredients of happiness;

whereas all you need to be really happy, my dear,

is something to be enthusiastic about.”

So I’m walking to my office mentally reviewing things that I get excited about. I find myself looking at how effortlessly the trees sway, how green the grass near the sidewalk still is and how much impishness there is in the eyes of a friend who just walked up to me. At least for this moment, my enthusiasm meter got a new battery on this cloud-covered day.