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Good morning.

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad.

It wearies me; you say it wearies you.

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,

I am to learn.

…so begins Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.

I’ve always loved these words since I first heard them, as they seem to encapsulate my own experience. When people are anxious, weary and just not themselves, they don’t always find it easy to say why – it just is.

Over the week of these reflections, I’ve been exploring something of how we interact with the world around us using the five senses we commonly refer to - sight, sound, taste, touch and smell.  However, recent literature would suggest that these senses are not the whole story.  How about a sense of balance -  how we sense movement, direction and equilibrium?

Much of the daily patterning of life; of work, leisure and relationships strives for balance - the desire for an inner equilibrium that enables stability and peace.  It is often when that balance is lost and aspects of life begin to be overwhelming that we sense things are out of place, out of control, out of kilter.  How it started, how it found us, how we change things, isn’t always so obvious.

To be attuned to our senses, to express our deepest thoughts and questions, and to know as the Psalmist did that no aspect of life or well-being needs to be hidden away, from God or from one another: this can awaken us to the power and potential of everything our senses can teach us.

God of the high and holy places,

Of the dark and lonely places,

Be our balance and our guide