I find it interesting about our human minds that good weather tends to make many of us feel good, energized, and happier, while rainy weather (usually for more than one day) can steal the energy and feeling of happiness. Now, I recognize this is not the case for everyone, but it is a general trend among people.
At the most basic, this just goes to show that our moods and feelings, even our energy levels and sense of purpose, often depend on circumstances.
This varies from individual to individual, but I suspect something deeper is going on as well. Maybe this is because much of the cultural mentality of our modern world has lost a sense of transcendence and wonder. Our modern cultural mindset is one that generally sees this world as a mechanistic place to be controlled and mastered to fit our lives. We have lost what some sociologists and psychologists refer to as "enchantment" (on more of that, click here). This world has become a pretty boring, closed system. And because we lack enchantment, when circumstances aren't the best, when things don't fit or work as we'd like, we struggle to see beyond the immediate circumstances, to find the mystery and wonder of it all.
This has not always been so.
For example, for some of the brightest scientists of previous eras (Galileo, Isaac Newton, Blaise Pascal, Johannes Kepler), science was a window onto the enchantment and mystery and wonder of God. Science did not merely solve and explain things. It opened their minds to the greatness and wonder of God. They knew more and more that they could not control this world; they could only learn the mystery of it and be enchanted by it.
Likewise, the writers of Scripture lived in another time when the world was seen as full of enchantment and wonder. They struggled to not find God everywhere. They wrestled to make sense of life because God was involved in all the details. Life was an exciting thrill, every day, precisely because God was involved in it all, rain or shine.
They remain helpful voices. It makes me wonder if the world has changed, or if we have changed (primarily in the modern west), and if we're missing something.
In the book about Jeremiah, God's religious and social critic, the Lord says to him:
"Stand by the roads well traveled, and look. Seek for the ancient paths, where the good way is, and walk in it and find rest for your souls." (Jeremiah 6:16)
Maybe the joy and happiness and purpose that is not swayed by circumstance can be found in reconnecting with the wonder and enchantment of our world and of our lives -- something lost and forgotten, but still available to us on the "ancient paths."
What if we were "re-enchanted" with a world where God is active everywhere, where possibility is endless, where every breath is a mysterious gift to be celebrated?
The writer of Ecclesiastes, often thought of as King Solomon, who lived in an age of enchantment, says this when faced with the apparent futility of life:
"There is nothing better for mortals than to eat, drink, and find enjoyment in their toil. This, I have found, is all from the hand of God. For apart from God, who can eat, drink, or have enjoyment?"
This world, these lives we live, are enchanting. Don't forget that. You are made to reflect the likeness of God. You don't need to make yourself into something. You don't need to measure up. You, and those around you, are already a jewel of God's creation in a vast, open, and wonderful world.
That's immeasurably enchanting, is it not? Live lives thrilled by God's presence, if you have the imagination to do so. Find the moments of enchantment today: in a smile, a laugh, a hug, a good book, a good bite of food, or even a good drink with a friend. Let these moments move you and inspire you.
Know that God is near. Revel in the enchantment of every moment. To heck with the circumstances and the weather.
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