UNPERTURBED

"Approaching Storm", oil, by Lori McNamara

“… aplomb in the midst of irrational things …”

     -- Walt Whitman, “Me Imperturbe”

     It would be a great gift to go unperturbed among the seemingly senseless workings of this world. It would be wonderful to be utterly calm whether crashes and calamities or restorations and triumphs take place. Like Whitman, I wish I could go with good-naturedness through all the madness I seem to see around me – live a life of stillness and acceptance while the world is throwing itself around with recklessness. It would be like living like a tree, just taking the winds and sunshine and storms as they come, just leaning and slanting and swaying and then standing straight up again with composure. The oldest trees could teach me how to bend, how to hold steady while doing whatever winds want me to do, and how to take up, again, a grand and gracious posture. To be unperturbed means simply to say “yes” to whatever is happening, and then to thank it for unfolding new truths for me. It means making a misfortune a gift, a disaster something to take strength from. It means showing whatever comes along that serenity always subdues hardship.