"Let all thy joys be as the month of May."
April was pretty amazing...
But what was with last week and that crazy wind!?
And the first week of May, it's going to be 90 something degrees...
That's Fresno for you.
But other than a little crazy weather now and then,
May is also pretty amazing.
"With fresh eyes and a loving, appreciative heart, we reconsider our daily rounds. As we learn to savor everyday epiphanies,
we encounter the Sacred in the ordinary."
"Today a new sun rises for me;
everything lives,
everything is animated,
everything seems to speak to me of my passion,
everything invites me to cherish it."
Start Quote
We should write an elegy for every day
that has slipped through our lives
unnoticed and unappreciated.
Better still, we should write a song of thanksgiving
for all the days that remain.
Sometimes we are aware of the poet who dwells within us
and registers every precious moment of our lives.
More often, however, we move through our days in a fog or a frenzy - until we're startled into consciousness by an unforeseen threat to something that we hold dear and have been taking for granted.
I call these luminous moments
'everyday epiphanies,'
because they jar us into a profound awareness
of how much we have,
and how much we have escaped,
and how much there is to be grateful for.
Through the mystical alchemy of Grace and thanksgiving,
what might have become an elegy is transformed into exultation:
our own recovery or that of a loved one who has been seriously ill;
the overwhelming relief after a child who has wandered off,
even for a few minutes, is found, safe and unharmed;
a reconciliation after a painful breach;
the realization of how lucky we are if we are doing work that we love;
the rejoicing that surrounds a long-awaited rite of passage;
the enormous satisfaction that comes after completing an overwhelming task;
the serenity that awaits us after struggle is abandoned.
End Quote
"You have to count on living every single day
in a way you believe will make you feel good about your life,
so that if it were over tomorrow,
you'd be content."
I love everyday epiphanies.
Here are a couple of mine over the last weekend.
Robbie asked for a blessing yesterday, and our home teachers came over and today he is almost good as new. And no one else has caught the bug. He didn't have to take a sick day, and he was able with his dad to work on my car.
My car is broken, but it broke at a most convenient time, instead of a week or so ago when I was an hour away from home. It broke, but I was still able to get it home without killing it. Something about the spark plugs and coils needing to be replaced, and the engine choking...Instead of paying $95 just to have someone look at it, Robbie and his dad took it to get the code read and are in the process of fixing it. We might still have to take it in, but I'm extremely lucky to have such handy men in my life.
Drowning can happen in a second. Did I tell you about the first day of swim lessons? Robbie was there with me and our three littles, all of them with their feet on the steps of the kiddie pool, and Riley gets up and goes around me and gets in on the other side of me. She's on the step, so I figure she's fine. Well, she goes past the step and face first into the water...Robbie pointed it out, I didn't see it. It took me a few seconds to compose myself and get to her, pulled her butt back to the step and helped her up. With all the adults around, and me right beside her, she could have drowned. It would have only taken a second. Today I saw a mother of triplets and then a 15 month younger brother on their first day of lessons. The same thing that happened to Riley happened to one of her triplets. But instead of in the kiddie pool, he stepped off into the deeper part of the pool. She asked someone to grab him, but none of the teachers saw it in time. She got in, tennis shoes and all, phone in one hand (she had been trying to take a picture) and with the other trying to grab him. He was all right, but it was still scary for all of us. That's why I'm spending $750 for 10 individual lessons for each child...so they'll be a little safer in water.
Silence. But not real silence. It was nap time, and Jacob was eating a sandwich and I was laying on the couch, listening to the washing machine upstairs, the wind chimes and the windmill, and Jacob humming a song. It was so beautiful.
I was super productive today.
Enormous satisfaction indeed.
What was one of your everyday epiphanies today?
***
Gratitude Journal
***
1) I'm so grateful for flowers, and for that flower arranging class.
2) Nap time is amazing. I spent most of it with this guy.
3) Also, my lips matched my pants...I love it.
4) I was wearing Shelby today. Her pants, her necklace...I saw someone today who walked like she did. I miss her.
5) Being freaking productive, like what!?!
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