Life taught me again how hectic it can be. So here are the seven "gratitudes" I've managed the last two weeks, and God forgive me for not making the time to be more grateful.
Canto II
{8} I thank God, almost regularly, for discussion. The mental sharpening of iron on iron is exercise for the brain that has no equal. To be forced to put your thoughts, ideas, and beliefs into words is the best way to know what you think and believe. And the discussions I thank God for are those where the other minds at work share an understanding, not of "Let me convince you to think my way," but, "Let us stumble together with words and concepts until we both know better what you and I think."
{9} Thanks be to God that "I have something that makes saying goodbye so difficult."*
{10} For the ability to forget--that these moments of of corruption need not stay vivid forever. Praise be to God that the devil's "Ah, but look what you did yesterday" simply doesn't hurt the same when it is "Ah, but look what you did __ days ago." We forget a bit how the guilt tasted. And there is a bit of danger in that, of course. If we forget past guilt we can become proud and stumble again. But man can corrupt all gifts, and there's wonder in this one too--in how God himself hears our regret and says, "What mistake? You confessed before, and I've forgotten it already, silly. Certainly, I know all, but there are things we need not remember forever, you and I."
{11}I thank God we live in a world of broad horizons. Oh the joy of those days we glimpse them, when God throws back the scales from our eyes and says, "Look and all these possibilities and choices before you. What are you quivering for, child? They aren't meant to frighten or burden you! Stop fretting over 'just right' and step forward. You aren't a machine, needing just the right design. You are an explorer, and there's a whole new world to be discovered here."
{12} For bedhead--a chance to be roused from morning stupor with a chance to laugh at yourself, which is always a better start than taking yourself too seriously.
{13} Elyon,** You have my thanks for the eyes of childhood: that perception which makes everything seem larger and more full of wonder. There are few things so warming to the heart as a child looking upon something you've done for them--some slapdash project you were hardly even trying for--and then looking back at you with those bright, wonder-filled eyes and saying in a tone hushed by awe, "Can you teach me how to do that?"
{14} For campfires--the earthy, wholesome scent of wood smoke and the dancing light of an open flame. I love how the flickering movements are a performance in an of themselves in the dark, darting about in a primal, wild show that men have watched under the stars for centuries. Oh the beauty of the sparks' flight, cascading upward as if you join the galaxies and make stars of their own.
* This is a quote which I believed, until just now, was said by Winnie the Pooh or some other Milne character. But in my research to find out which stuffed character actually said it, I discovered it isn't a Milne quote at all, and isn't even originally said that way. However, I love that word choice, and it isn't one i constructed, so I left it on quotations marks :)
**"Elyon" is one of the Hebrew names for God. It translates to something like "the most high God." Probably due to my love for foreign and magical sounding words, I developed a love for it some years ago and use it fairly often. It's come to feel like my own personal name for him, something like a nickname but not near as flippant as that. I'm not really sure how to explain what it means to me, except to say that I call God by that name in my happiest and darkest moments, when I am feeling most sincere.
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