Encouragement is all that's needed to shine

A movie sponsored a while back at the Newport Roxy — “Neither Wolf Nor Dog” — in conjunction with the Kalispel Tribe depicts an elderly Native American man whose eyesight is dimming. Yet traversing a field he points out a buffalo to his companion. “How did you see that?” the one asks. The man answers, “I didn’t. It showed itself to me.”

The same is true in all of nature. Things show themselves if we’re attuned. Take the sun when it finally arrives. A couple of warm days is all it requires to excite the little frogs at the pond. They emerged from their mud bath as chatty neighbors gathered on a front porch in the evening.

The buds on the bushes unfurled. Leaf sprinkles I call them this time of year. It took them a while to decide if they should risk it. You could see their hesitation. Hard bumps along the thin branches. Giving nothing away. But all that green vitality burst forth with some coaxing.

Here’s what showed itself to me in all the spring stirrings that recently made themselves known. One word. Encouragement. That’s all they were waiting for. A nudge. An affirmation. An invitation.

Move from the outdoor realm to the interior terrain of the human heart — and the potential in each person to respond to timely encouragement. To open to the light and warmth it brings — much like the sun’s effect on the natural world.

Without a boost of some kind, it’s all too common to stay closed up like buds on a branch. Or buried in the mud like the peepers. Robert Hensel, born with a birth defect, says, “There is no greater disability in society than the inability to see a person as more.”

Perhaps God’s purpose in this optimistic season — the wisdom that shows itself — is how encouragement can affect another life. How it calls forth the “more” in us. How everybody can be somebody’s sun.