Last year, after many years of overwork and high-on-the-“quantify-your-stress”-chart family changes, I took my wife’s suggestion to address my long-neglected spirit. I read daily in some of her spiritual books, joined her in watching some online talks by spiritual teachers, and tried, in my own lame way, to incorporate some of the gurus’ most congenial (and least challenging?) ideas into my life. Sometimes, I wrestled with their words. (Sometimes my eyes glazed over, and I cooked or watched a ballgame.) 

 I also took the cheap guy’s spiritual retreat. I took time each morning (most days) to sit on our front porch, or in our backyard, or in the family room by the rear door leading to that yard, to look at our trees and flowers, to note the changes in the weather, to watch the birds and squirrels that visit our bird feeders, and to reflect. Often, this time led me—allowed me—to recognize more fully some beauties that, in years past, I was too busy to notice. Over time, seeing the same plants and trees day after day with more awareness, I saw, more clearly than ever before, the subtle changes within each season and the transformation of one season into another.  

I think I learned some things.

First, I did not need to transplant myself to Walden Pond to watch and think. I didn’t have to go to Tinker’s Creek to be a pilgrim. All I needed to do was to stop and look. Perhaps, life, like politics, is local. We don’t have to become hermits. We just need to invest our minds and our souls in where we are.  

Second, there can be beauty that touches the soul not only in the soft, flowering summer but also in the sharp, if chilly, definitions of winter. (This was a big revelation to me. I hate winter.) 

Third, the cycle of the seasons reminded me that “This, too, shall pass.” The welcome smiles of early daffodils, the fullness of peony blooms, and the autumn collage of leaves all fade. So, too, thankfully, does the brown, bare blight of winter. Since my at-home retreat took place against a backdrop of months of national calamities and growing anxiety, this idea was reassuring. True, the news on some days was so depressing that the lesson was difficult to remember. But I’ve been a lot calmer in the past year, in the face of serious personal and national angst, than I was in past years when prospects appeared much brighter. So taking time to stop and think seems to have helped.  

Or I’m whistling in the graveyard. Or maybe it’s just being soma-tized by PPWSWES (Post Phils’ World Series Win Ecstasy Syndrome).  (Resisting the temptation to post video of the victory parade.)

But I don’t think so. I do think the greater calm has resulted from slowing down and appreciating things.

Which leads to some (unsolicited) advice for the weary, worn, and worried. Stop for a little bit every day—as much time as you can. Turn off the music and the podcasts, the over-loud TV and the obnoxious talk radio, the depressing news and the annoying commercials. Look around you for something beautiful. If you can, find that beauty in your home—then you can more easily go back to it tomorrow. Remember that beautiful doesn’t necessarily mean fine or expensive or lush; it’s just harmonious and touching in some deeply personal and soothing way.  

Once you’ve latched your sight on whatever—or whoever— it is, savor it. Give thanks for it. Amd carry it with you the rest of the day.

Repeat the treatment as needed.