HAPPINESS IS…Feeling Thankful For Ordinary Things
It’s the month of November, and I am feeling thankful here in south Louisiana.
I am writing outdoors this morning. I move my patio chair close to the edge, where the cement touches the grass, so that I have a clear view of the sky. So that I can gaze at the feathery angel-wing clouds spreading from north to south. So that I can feel the coolness of the air against my flip-flopped feet instead of burning them in the sun.
The birds are rather quiet this morning – they don’t seem to have much to say, except an occasional whistle in the distance, a soft caw or a little shriek here and there. Brownie whimpers and whines, annoying me like a petulant child. She wants to go all the way into the sun, with no part of her little body in the cold shade.
A helicopter breaks the quiet, chopping it into pieces with his noisy, powerful blades.
Now he’s gone and the stillness slowly returns. Brownie is basking in full sun, her eyes sleepy, her sigh content. This is a good life.
And I thank God for his presence in all of these things, ordinary nature infused with the divine, transforming everything into something beautiful. I thank you, Lord, for the view of the sky, and the sweeping clouds, and the barking black dog two houses down. Thank you that I can write outdoors, my soul touching your beauty, my heart lifting with praise, my page ruffling in the breeze.
I thank you for all the lovely words and images you have given me to write, your thoughts and ideas spilling through me onto pages and pages, flowing like a river that runs through my heart, translating feelings into language, words wrapped in the fragrance of the divine and poured out like anointing oil to continually heal the brokenness of a wounded world.
You work your ways into our lives using the most ordinary earthly things. You make a normal life “the good life” – full and satisfying, meeting practical needs without fanfare, almost unnoticed. Easy to miss, unless one is really looking, attention open to the barely visible threads connecting our known to the unknown. With silver cords you lace our veins through your own heart, allowing us to flow through you, and with you, and in you, keeping us close and warm, never alone.
Such mysteries are too deep to fathom, yet we catch a glimpse on a quiet day, in the rustle of autumn leaves, with fresh air touching our skin, and the soft voices of birds in branches, brushing past us as we let our eyes rest on the blueness of the sky. Ordinary moments woven into everyday life – hot coffee, warm toast, cinnamon sprinkles, a good morning kiss – normal routines that link our minutes into hours, our hours into days.
All these things somehow transform the unremarkable into an extraordinarily fulfilled life.
And for that, I am thankful.
