Giving thanks...

Today is thanksgiving. The one day a year that we are given liscence to take stock. A chance to check our ‘storerooms’ if you will. One day set aside specifically for thoughtful reflection. (It’s almost as if someone thought we don’t do that enough?!) A chance to look around our lives' to listen, smell, smile, and re-focus. Its like the value we are constantly trying to acquire is actually lying right at our feet. Like the work is meaningless without a lens or magnifying glass in which we can begin to understand the goodness all around us. So often I find myself saying, “so what?” or “what does this all mean?” Or my recent favorite, “why am I doing this?” I guess it’s simply because I have lost sight. Lost sight of the lives lost this year, the triumphs, the losses, the additions, the wins, the celebrations, and most importantly the people that make life truly beautiful. It is this detailed fabric that is blurred, torn, or even discarded along my way. Life is not black and white, made up of longitudinal movement from one appointment to the next. It is a beautiful fabric woven with threads of sorrow, threads of joy, threads of goodbyes, threads of welcome, threads of success, threads of disappointment. Somehow life is easier to swallow when I see life as a work in progress- a piece of fabric woven together.

Thoughts for a thanksgiving eve...

“Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.”
Saint Augustine

Moving.

Moving
Through the dark.
Moving.
Through the tests, meetings, lectures, assessments, hoops.
Moving
Through relationships. Friendships.
Moving. On to better things?
Wishing I had the strength of feathered wings.
That there weren’t so many strings
It seems that the sweetness never sings
And the sourness always stings.

a new perspective from 30, 000 ft...

Tonight.
The last black dot on white
The ending paragraph to voices, places, space
This is the last punctuation mark.
The fading of a flickering spark.
Behind. Remind. A different kind.
This is space for the new-ness to begin.
The lighting of a new spark
A new color other than black on white…..
And a chance to make things right.
Tonight.

The cloudy days are full of sun.

Why is it that the cloudy and rainy days bring some of the sunniest rays?
Why is it that I look for goodness only when the sun shines?
And why do I expect gloom during the rainy times?
Why is the sweetness of time, unlocked under cloudy skys?

Dirt under my nails

For the last few days I have been working it out in my garden. Let’s be honest it’s a very modest piece of the earth, but somehow to me it means the world. The plants, the weeds, and most of all the dirt speak to my soul. The order and disorder, or maybe the simplicity – is fantastic.

breath of fresh air...

this week has been a week of preparing for the next stage. It has been a week of joys, and hellos. It has been a week of sleeping in and staying up late. It has been a week of seeing old friends and making new ones. It has been a gift- a time away to play. It has been a week full of surprises- early morning hikes and country line dancing. It has been what I long for life to be- a positive change into a new beginning. This week has also been a week of saying goodbye. It has been a time to change old/bad habits. It has been a week of hard conversations. It has been a week of turning from the old, turning around towards the good and better. I have had time to read a book (not school related), plant a garden, and run. I feel like my lungs are filling with newness literally. I have for a brief moment tasted life. Mostly I don’t want to let that feeling go….somehow I want to bottle it up. That way I can take it off the bookshelf when I am feeling especially rundown. I am lucky and never take the time realize it. I am cared for and never say thank you. I am honored and never take the time to appreciate that fully. It seems that my life is surrounded by goodness. It seems that people and places that make up my seemingly meaning less life really are good. I need to be reminded of this now and again….this week I look back and see that goodness!

What two days can do...

Celebrations are times in life when what happens in the inner life becomes visible beyond the person, to a community. The private decisions, joy, and deepest movings of the soul are seen outside. I like celebrations. I like the way it draws people together. I like the way these celebrations bring to the surface the good in life. It seems that for once the good are honored and life becomes what we always hope it to be. This weekend the refreshing breeze of goodness washed over my soul. I see balance where I usually see imbalance. I see harmony when I usually see people trying to destroy one another. I see and hear laughing. Most of my time is spent in and around tears. I see and I hear hearts breaking. And somehow I watched this wedding and for a few hours I begin to see life differently. All because I can see the hope and joy in someone else’s soul. I saw celebration of an inward change between a man and woman and the recognition of beauty in someone else. I like being an on-looker to those changes and the fresh perspective of laugher and joy. Somehow the celebrations in life are the pieces that I remember. The ‘high’ points in life I look back on. They make me smile in-spite of myself and my soul begins to turn. Turn back around to refocus and re-evaluate.
Interesting what two days away can do. Ordinary becomes fresh and regular feels new again. Isn’t that what life should be? A coming back to try again and a new way to live an ordinary life.