Some days are drizzle factories, others sine brighter than the sun-kissed surfaces. This week has been changeable, heavy downpours where raindrops hit the floor like tutu clad faries dancing, and balmy walks have been pushed back to back. Today we found people handing out free cans of drink in the centre, a stage praying for the rain to hold off before the salsa dancers descended, a huge crowd of youth singing to drums as they celebrated the end of school, all hanging on this moment, living in this moment, this second.
This is above all a seasonal land. And while the summer may scorch some of the crowds into hiding as effectively as the snow, the spring time is an unending list of activities. Our almost daily walk through the centre means we are so much more in-tune with the various happening, be it a concert or a promotion. Your plans change and adapt by your discoveries constantly. To be honest that's quite unnerving in some senses, you are controlled by the seasons wave, ebbing and flowing with the tide. In other ways you get to see the seasons in all their beauty, taste their fruits, revel in the abundance.
I have noticed that this action over thought, opportunity over planning, type approach is much more effective for your feel-good happiness - that temporary feeling as you partake in something pleasurable. The excitement of the crowd is infectious, the activity lifts your spirits, and you shed your baggage to be in that moment and share the smiles of those around you.
However there is another type of happiness, value-based happiness is a sense that our lives have meaning and fulfill some larger purpose. This too finds it's place in community, merits the worth of events. It smells the abundance God's world has provided for us, watches the young lovers swoon, sees the families as they form. This happiness can be found in certainty and academia, but it's lives and breathes, grows and flourishes in the open, between the whispered prayers and crowds crescendo's.
Today is a new day, be it rain or shine, a day of trouble or a day of joy, it has been placed in this sequence, within this season and it awaits our eyes. It waits for us to glean what we will from it, to find the joy and the meaning woven into it's minutes.