― J.M. Barrie
During troubling times memory has a well established habit providing us with strolls down nostalgia lane recalling with some joy faces, places, and events embedded into the deepest recesses of our mind, surfacing when during our moments of quiet reflection we reminisce on happier times when life appeared to reward us with its delights, sufficient to understand that those memories appear when we need them most relieving us of all that dares to threaten our well being.
This morning over coffee at our village inn a deeply troubled retired school teacher asked me why he was being visited night, after night by faces of friends, and companions that in his earlier life had brought him so much joy. My good neighbour, Pavlos is grieving the passing of his wife Dimitra a relationship that had spanned some fifty years of marriage.
It can be argued that the brain has its way of calming us during our more stressful periods as if to say, I am sensitive to your need not to succumb to your fear that you will lose your battle with another crisis that life has sent to grow our resilience in the face of our easy choice to surrender to our worries that we may not cope.
That to imagine our brain has a life of its own apart from our conscious awareness might well be a tempting answer, until recognising that the helpful intervention has a life of its own, daily encouraging us to rise out of our self pitying belief that we cannot succeed in over coming the predicament depressing us.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the Lord
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
~ Isaiah 40:29-31
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