For the month of November, this cornucopia has been the seasonal banner at our front step. Soon it will be time to put up something suitable for Christmas, but the image of natural abundance in the picture reminds me that I need to make a list of some of the things I am most thankful for.Back in 1999, I read a small book titled Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach. The premise was simple...too simplistic, some would say. The idea is to become aware of one's blessings, to cherish the present moment and see what one has to be grateful for. Cultivating this practice of gratitude has become my most reliable spiritual discipline, since I tend to falter when it comes to some of the others. And even though the Simple Abundance idea has gone on to become a huge industry, that basic practice of gratitude...finding five things a day that I am thankful for, each day, without duplicating yesterday's list...has sustained me when I have felt overwhelmed by work or commitments, saddened by events beyond my control, discouraged by my own weakness, or just plain tired. If I were to compile a condensed Simple Abundance list for 2006, it might include the following:
- Retirement, and the joy of sleeping in--sometimes.
- Water exercise
- Reading club
- Blogging
- Seeing Carnall Hall restored and thriving (see account on Home Stories)
- Walking on the beach in Ft. Myers, Fla.
- Doug's PhD hooding ceremony.
- All of Doug's family and Matt's family and many friends at our house for his graduation picnic in May
- Being able to walk right after arthroscopic knee surgery
- The hum of neighborhood generators through the night during our 5-day storm blackout.
- The kindness of neighbors.
- Hummingbirds at the feeder
- Quilt stamps to put on letters
- Online banking to save postage
- Sloppy Poodle kisses from a pup named Sam
- The best neighbor in the world, Barb, to share a driveway with, and her 15-year-old terrier, Barnabas.
- All of the Linville sibs and many of their families at the reunion in June
- The World's Largest Ball of Twine is really that.
- Highways
- Non-stop flights
- high Speed Internet Access, and the means to pay for it.
- The Cardinals win the World Series
- My student newspaper staff takes 2nd in the nation
- A 13-year-old Van keeps truckin'
- Sunlight
- Rain
- Our outdoor and indoor garden
- Christmas Cacti blooming two months early
- 250 Trick or Treaters on Halloween
- Passing the Peace on Sundays at Compton Heights
- Norm
- Life, here and now, every day.
1 comment:
Very difficult, this cultivating of gratitude. I tend to take the good things for granted and grieve for relatively small losses or absences or missing satisfactions at the margins. Often undeserved amplitude is such a donnee for me, when I stop to contemplate it, that I think I willfully refuse to contemplate the unmerited nature of my good forture for fear of the toll, the debt, the unrepayable sum I'd arrive at.
A short list, off the cuff:
-a great home, ringed with concentric circles of fabulous family
-a good, satisfying, moral job.
-the ability to read
-detente with the Hs.
-d
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