Dear friends of Italy,
midsummer is well and truly here, in Italy just as in Germany. Plenty of sunshine and temperatures well above 30 degrees. And that is a wonderful thing! But too much heat is never good either, as Italians know all too well. The body suffers, the mind grows weary. All the more important, then, are small breathing spaces. Our guest author Dr. Christoph Glummoffers just that, inviting readers once again to one of his beloved moments of pause with a short video. Sometimes a single minute is enough to stop, breathe deeply, and recharge. Feel free to take a look at Dr. Christoph Glumm's video. We wish all our readers a wonderful summer vacation, perhaps under the Italian sun.
Looking Up
In those moments of life when our soul weeps, when life seems lifeless, when worries and fears weigh us down, we often behave much like the little bird that flew into our living room one spring and circled wildly near the ceiling, until in its desperate effort to get outside it crashed with a loud bang against the window. There it clung, pressed close to the glass, and thus to its problem , until at some point it sank to the floor, exhausted, and could be gently picked up and carried out into the open air.
The first thought was: "How foolish! It would have only needed to fly a few inches away from the glass to see the open door." The second thought was: "I often do exactly the same thing!" When stuck in a crisis, carrying problems around, one tends, figuratively speaking, to press one's nose right up against the problem and strain with all one's might to break free, which so often does not work. Eventually, like the little bird, one ends up lying on the ground, drained of all strength.
In these moments, it seems essential to take a step back, to look left and right, and to turn one's gaze upward, toward God, letting a fresh wind into life, God's fresh wind , gaining new ideas through that openness, finding calm and peace in the heart, and rediscovering a joy in life where joylessness seems to reign!
