Living Joyfully One Day at a Time

Thank you to all my friends and family far and near for the prayers and encouragement this week. Some people were aware that one of my siblings needed emergency surgery this week; everything went well, and he is expected to make a full recovery. To everyone who remembered him in your prayers, thank you.

I've spent the last several days talking to my two sisters and my other brother at least once, sometimes several times a day, as we process the anxiety and fear of having one of "us" so ill (we tend to refer to ourselves as a collective, like the Borg without the creepiness factor). Many of them are trying to find meaning in what is happening; the only meaning that I take from it is that we must continue to live joyfully, one day at a time. It is so, so very easy to forget that each day is a miracle unfolding in front of us.  I know that I do that all the time! I wake up and want to grumble because the dog woke me at 5 a.m, or I stagger down to the kitchen bleary-eyed and find a stack of unwashed dishes from the other adults in this household. It's like I'm the only one around here with the magical abilities to squirt some dish soap into the sink and wash a plate.  Grumble grumble grumble.

All around the world is beautiful. It's ugly and scary too, and my mind wants to magnify the ugly, scary things and forget the beautiful things.

That's why I think gardening is so amazingly therapeutic. Look at the photo at the top of this page. I snapped that on the spur of the moment on Monday morning. During the summer months I like to take my coffee in the morning out onto the front porch and sit for a while watching the birds and the dawn light changing the colors of the clouds. It's cool and peaceful in the morning and with Shadow by my side, we watch the world awaken and unfold around us.  I took a little walk around the garden and there was the only remaining hollyhock, this lush lemon yellow beauty, unfolding its blossoms like beautiful, delicate whorls of lace.

Yet there in the middle of the flowers were Japanese beetles - first of the season. They can eat a flower right off the stalk and they love hollyhocks. So I captured the beauty of that flower and enjoyed it for the day.  The next day it was gone. Did it die or did the beetles eat it? Who knows?

The important thing to remember is that joy, like beauty, is a daily gift. It has to be renewed daily.  The human impulse is to want to squash joy and beauty into a sack and take them out every day and look at them again and again while all around us new joy and new beauty unfold.  There is an old saying that today is a gift- that's why we call it "the present."  It is so true.

You can look for the Japanese beetles spoiling the hollyhocks, or you can bask in the beauty of the hollyhock today - and not worry about tomorrow.

Make sure you take a few minutes today to enjoy the gift of your present.