Encouraging messages from the District Administrator: Miracles in passing

The coronavirus is omnipresent at the moment - and dominates every area of life almost every day. In order to encourage the people of Waldeck-Frankenberg in these difficult times, District Administrator Dr. Reinhard Kubat started the "Lichtblicke" series of articles at the beginning of the year with a total of four messages to encourage people. The third part is now about "Miracles in passing - Being as amazed as a child".

Dear fellow citizens,

After we have got to know the power of light together and discovered the small joys, the special things in the everyday, I would like to take you on this last section of my journey of thoughts to another "beauty of life". A beauty that is not quite as hidden as the destinations of the first two sections, that is openly revealed but often misjudged as something quite different. We no longer notice it because it has become a matter of course for us, and we too often pass it by carelessly. And yet it quickly reveals itself to us again when we learn to look at it with the wondering eyes of a child.

Have you taken a closer look around lately? Now that all the snow has thawed, which gave us a winter like we haven't had in a long time, it is sprouting and greening and blossoming all around us. Out of the corner of our eye we can still perceive them even in the fleeting passing, the colourful splashes of colour with which Mother Nature adorns herself more and more. It only took a few hours for the snowdrops, winter lilies or crocuses, wild primroses or grape hyacinths to stretch their colourful heads towards the sun, as soon as they were freed from the supposedly crushing weight of the frozen water.

Isn't it a miracle how such delicate, fragile creatures triumph over all weather unbill? How they spread joy again and again, year after year, as the first harbingers of spring, celebrating life in their very own way, proclaiming victory over the dark, cold season? A miracle indeed, but one that we think about far too rarely, one that we should pause and become aware of far more often. Amazed, joyful and excited, as the children show us, and which we have almost forgotten in the hectic pace of our everyday lives. "There are always miracles, but when you encounter them, you have to see them," Katja Ebstein urged us in her well-known hit song.

How many of these "miracles in passing" there are, dear fellow citizens! There is the tiny seed which, after a few days in fertile soil, becomes the sprout of a nourishing stalk of grain, a fragrant rose bush or even a mighty tree. There is the hairy, soil-bound caterpillar that will one day become a magnificent butterfly, dancing through the air, to the great amazement of every child who experiences this wonder of nature for the first time. And there is the crack in the asphalt from which a dandelion makes its way out into the open, breaking with admirable strength through the sealing that has cut off its habitat, the soil, from light and air. Behind it is a strength of the once filigree dandelion that no human weightlifter could ever match... truly amazing!

These are just a few very, very few examples with which nature shows us again and again every day how wonderfully it is put together. And which we unfortunately no longer see as miracles because we have become numb to them in a certain sense. We are so inundated with stimuli, so used to or rather spoiled by technical, medical or other modern achievements that make life easier, that we have lost sight of what is small but all the more wonderful. The view that only children, who are themselves our little ones, have in an undistorted form. They still see it, the something that far surpasses the usual in its measure of unique and supreme perfection, that simply has to evoke admiration and amazement. With children, every day is full of amazing discoveries and therefore wonderful - as it can be for each of us when we grasp the world in a whole new way through the eyes of a child.

This is exactly what I invite you to do, dear fellow citizens: Become a child again and experience all the wonderful things life has to offer. Realise the truth of the line "It would be stupid not to believe in miracles" from the song An Wunder by Wincent Weiss, enjoy all the amazing things that open up to the little ones as they pass by. And last but not least, see the wonder in the record speed with which resourceful scientists have succeeded in developing a vaccine against the coronavirus, a process that normally takes years. Embrace this miracle, be grateful for the opportunity to stop the virus with two little arm pokes. And rejoice with all those who have already received a vaccination, thus contributing to widespread immunisation and significantly reducing the risk of infection in the population... what a wonderful prospect of a gradual return to normal life.

This almost concludes my little journey of thoughts, my opening of eyes to all the bright, special and astonishing things that surround us, that give us glimpses of light and give us the courage to go through life with confidence. I am delighted if this journey is as good for you as it is for me to lay out the route and stop at the various stations. To conclude, I will shortly take you on a detour to one of the most important human emotions: hope. Until then, I wish you from the bottom of my heart with the wise saying of Pearl S. Buck "The true wisdom of life is to see the wonderful in the mundane": Take good care of yourself and be protected!

Dr Reinhard Kubat

District Administrator