We can all have extraordinary days if we pay attention and open our hearts and minds.
Father Paul spoke about the Transfiguration of Christ at church this morning. I couldn’t help but think about the post we put up last Friday. “Look for the light,” Father Paul implored us, and in his intercessions I heard Leonard Cohen singing,
“Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.”
As we walked from the church, Father Paul encouraged us to enjoy this beautiful day that our Creator blessed us with.
An hour later, Mrs. tVM and I were taking a bike ride on this warm Arizona day in the Sonora Desert. As we climbed one of the few steep hills we encounter, we passed a Dad helping his young son – on training wheels – up the hill. We gave them the thumbs up and told the little boy, “Way to go!” As we passed Mom 40 feet ahead, we saw that she carried her infant daughter in a secure seat on her bike. “Bravo for you, Mom!” we called, and we heard the little boy say, “They told me ‘Way to go’ Mom!” Wow.
Later in the afternoon, I opened a book of poetry assembled by Garrison Keillor. Good Poems, he calls it. They tell me he’s a liberal. I don’t care if he’s a Martian. I like his books. In his introduction, Mr. Keillor writes,
“… no matter how weary or discouraged you may be, sick of politics and phony piety, media monkeytalk, TV comedy, lousy food, stupefying music, sick of yourself and your bad life choices, you will come upon the places in these poems, the country store with the freezer full of blueberries… the boy in the clean undershirt at the Laundromat, a truckload of butter on the freeway, a small bridge in the moonlight… snow falling in the morning streets of Chicago… the fireflies under the stars… the line of telephone poles across Kansas… the yellow school bus in Wyoming… the cowboy on the bucking bronco named Firecracker… the couple kissing at Gate C22, a rainstorm in Seattle or the starfish in the tide pools. It’s all in here. It’s all out there.
Whether you read this in Afghanistan, the streets of Cairo, from your flat in Vienna or from the library in Dubuque, LIFE IS GRAND… if you allow it to be. Look for the good in it, and you will find it.