The winter has slackened its grip so that the birds begin, earlier and earlier, to strike up their gratitude in the form of a home-made setting of the Hallelujah — a composition that ushers in the daybreak heartily and breaks the day open in such excitement that each of us can pick up his own little piece from among the shards. Birds always rise up on the right side of the nest — how else, after an opening chorus so full of wonder and of appreciation for life?

They use speech and sound on instinct, in the service of a higher command. They do not sigh, they do not complain, they do not scold — they simply let the night slip softly away under the weight of their hospitality, overflowing with an unquenchable high-spiritedness that draws in light, warmth and busyness and endlessly duplicates them, until tired little bodies wish the evening nearer — so that the busy day can call its demands to a halt and busy thoughts can have a chance to seep away into the lostness of the night that swallows everything and lays down a new foundation for the next little morsel of eternity, packaged in 24 hours.

Our own wearing-down is a self-imposed process founded on the casting of suspicion over life itself — a restless fault-finding marinated in too little love and too little gratitude. A condition that alienates hearts from their own destiny and from God. Money-debt and money-need drive our days and our bodies, but love-debt and love-need drive our spirit, which wanders about bewildered in search of a pleasant landing strip in our feelings where it can arrive safely at feeling well and being well. Emotional wanderers of the 21st century, our hearts never come home; because calm, caring and meek thoughts are not permitted to drop anchor long enough to create good feelings that grow firmly into our day and finally into our personality.

Too hurried to ponder, too hurried to make contact, too hurried to learn how to listen with our hearts, we are like a long line of black little ants that keeps on moving — always forward. Like the little ants we keep brushing fleetingly against everyone who keeps coming past — hurried, on our way to the crack in the wall where the eternity in our hearts has been replaced with the eternity of the journey.

Only a grateful awareness of the experience of our own hearts can take the load of the journey off our shoulders, out from under our feet, and off our feelings. How young or how old, how fresh and inspired, or how worn out and dejected your heart feels during any given moment of your day depends on how you plan your life's journey and how you keep to course. Your soul can only suffer damage and your heart can only be lost if your day and its moments have been lived apart from spontaneous good feelings — a bubbling fountain of life, undeserved and inexhaustible for everyone who has learned to live close to it.

Groete Amanda Kreitzer