UNPREDICTABLE CLOUDS

Yesterday, the NY Times had an article about a man who started something called the Cloud Appreciation Society. He'd been spending some time in Rome and as he looked at frescoes and religious paintings he noticed they were filled with clouds, masses of the soft billowing kind, but outside the Roman sky usually had very few clouds. 
     He was in Rome because he needed time off from publishing a magazine in London called "The Idler." He called it "literature for loafers" and advocated aimlessness, letting the imagination wander. In Rome, he thought about the clouds in the paintings and the cloudless sky and just got interested.
    Back in London, he began a detailed study of clouds and talked to everyone about them. Eventually, a friend invited him to give a lecture and, in trying to come up with an alluring title, he called it "The Inaugural Lecture of the Cloud Appreciation Society." The lecture room was packed and afterwards people asked him how they could join the Society. He had to admit there wasn't one but soon fixed that. He created a website where people can post photos of clouds, trade information and, in exchange for $15, get a membership badge and certificate. There are now 40,000 members from all around the world. He's written a book about clouds that's been a great success and now his life is all about clouds.
     There are so many reasons to love this story. A deep interest and passionate study of what is possibly the most ephemeral thing in Nature, never fixed, always changing. The fact that this man noticed clouds and wanted to know about them. He didn't second guess himself or wonder what other people would say about his eccentric interest. He just went with it and a world of science, art and literature, not to mention people, opened up to him. Who could have predicted how far the simple act of noticing clouds would take him? Or that people all around the world would share his interest?
     Unpredictability.  We think we know where things are going or how all our efforts will turn out. Things, disappointing things we couldn't have predicted often come to pass and this is such a common occurrence there are common phrases for it: Man proposes and God disposes. Or from John Lennon: life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. We don't always get what we want. But this man's story shows that the opposite is also true. You don't know where things will lead and sometimes the unpredictable is a welcome surprise, even better than what you thought you wanted. 
     I can see that for me the challenge is to move forward without judgment or self-censorship, to allow myself to go wherever spirit leads me. I can stop being certain of the outcome of what I do. I can think of the unpredictable, even when it's something I wish hadn't happened, as simply a new set of circumstances to embrace and learn what I can. I can't be without opinion or desire but I can let things take their course and be all right no matter what.
     What a rich world the cloud man created; he found it because nothing was holding him back.

MAKE THE ANGELS WEEP

(The realization that none of us owns the truth) is the basis of all our tolerance, social, religious and political. The forgetting of it lies at the root of every stupid mistake that rulers over subject-peoples make. The first thing to learn in intercourse with others is non-interference with their peculiar ways...no one should presume to judge them off-hand. The pretension to dogmatize about them in each other is the root of most human injustices and cruelties, and the trait in human character most likely to make the angels weep.
     William James in his essay, "What Makes A Life Significant." 

HUMILITY

I'm thinking of how often in the past I've been wrong about things. I've made assumptions about people - that one is uninteresting, that one is wearing the wrong shoes, that one will never see the solution right in front of his face. I've made snap judgments, misunderstood intentions, proudly spouted what I see now was absolute nonsense.
     Sometimes I like to remember the times I was wrong because they show me how far I've come. I hear something I said twenty years ago and instead of cringing with embarrassment I want to throw my arms around that poor misguided girl. You'll see, I want to say, you'll see how much you're going to change. 
    Remembering is humbling and I like the feeling of humility, which is a far cry from humiliation. Humility opens me up and helps me feel right-sized. It gives me the sense that all of us are fallible, sometimes living in illusion, sometimes deluded by self-interest or insecurity. Humility tells me that I'm no different than anyone else and sometimes that thought floods me with compassion, with love for us all.