You affect the weather, and the weather affects you. Rain is good, and sun is good. Heat is good, and cold is good. You may prefer one or the other, yet you know better than to rail against the weather too much. You live with it. You take it as a matter of course.

Yet when your mood is as changeable as the weather, you have concern. When you are sad and weep, you take the tears to be of great consequence. Beloveds, they are only tears.

And when you are exceedingly happy, you also wonder what’s the matter with you, being so happy in a world you see as fraught with troubles.

I tell you to enjoy. Enjoy even the tears. Who said that you are wrong to have them? Who can say the weather is wrong whether it is rain or shine?

Do you see how you think too much? You weigh too many things. You may weigh everything. Weighing is judging. Weighing does not hold you in good stead. Let yourself be. What comes, comes. What does not come does not come. What is the significant difference really except as you say? You perceive, beloveds. You perceive.

What if it is all right to cry? When you feel sad, and tears come, must you rail against the sadness and the tears? Maybe tears are like a spring rain. Maybe they are, for the moment, necessary. Maybe they are a good thing. If you cannot say they are good, at least don’t tell yourself that they are wrong.

I am not recommending that you cry, you understand. I recommend that you laugh rather than cry. And, yet, when tears come, I recommend that you welcome them. I recommend that you welcome whatever comes. That is how you make short work of what comes. When you push tears away, you keep them. Welcome tears, and they will leave soon. Sorrow, sadness, grief do not last forever, so let them have their fill and then let them go on their merry way. They mean no harm to you.

They are like stores on a street. You enter one store, and you enjoy it very much. You enter another store, and you don’t like it. And so you find your way out. Both stores are impartial to you. The store is the store that it is. And so is it with your emotions. You go from one to another. Well, just go then without making a big deal of it.

No matter how sad and weepy you may be today, don’t hang on to the tears, and don’t hasten them away either. Let them have their day. Tears will leave of their own accord. Simply release them when they are ready to go. Neither hold on to them nor shove them away.

We might say that tears are a fact of life, beloveds. In any case, they are not bad guys out to get you. They mean to comfort you. They mean to be kind. They mean to be your friend, your counselor, your safety valve. Be kind back to them. Tears may not be the guests you wanted. They may be totally uninvited. Nevertheless, you are courteous to them. And if they want to stay over a day or two, you accommodate them. Tears are not marauders, beloveds, nor are they freeloaders. Tears know when to come, and they know when to leave. You don’t have to be fraught with them, and you don’t have to abdicate them. They are only tears.