Lest we miss it...
I didn't INTEND to get up at 5am this morning, but Rosie woke me up and needed to go outside and oh my goodness it was soooo beautiful with four inches of fresh snow so by the time I came inside I was wide awake and here I am on the laptop making up for the fact that I missed sending a Tuesday blogpost - haha and THAT ladies and gentlemen is a FINE run on sentence and I haven't even had my tea yet!
All that said, here I sit at 5:54am. And the prevailing thought in my not fully awake mind is "don't miss the blessings." I mean, I'm thinking about how much has changed in the past year. Things we've missed. New things we've experienced. Things that arose through the hardships of Covid, and things that went away.
A year ago, we were praying for an end to the violence of school shootings. And then schools were shut down, and now parents pray for schools to re-open.
A year ago, we were worrying that kids were spending too much screen time on their phones. And then their screens became their source of learning, their ever valuable connection.
A year ago, I was praying for direction about my work, and heard the repeated whisper of "paint more ~ paint more" and a year later I have an inventory of new work I could barely have imagined.
A year ago, we were smiling at each other with our entire faces, having no idea that we would be hiding behind face-masks for the next ten months, and then some. Oh, I do miss wearing lipstick!
The list, of course, is endless.
I'm not sure this is making sense in type as it has when it rolled through my head (and I'm even less sure of how many are even going to read it so I'll just say it anyway) and I fear I am stating the obvious, but I want to encourage you, implore you, to be mindful of the blessings in your hands, right now, that you may be overlooking. And I say that not in a "YOU need to do this" way but in a "I want to be more mindful myself" way.
What's the saying? Life slips through our hands like grains of sand.
The trick isn't to try to hold onto the sand, or our hands will become full and we won't have room to hold anything new. Rather, pay attention to the grains you hold right now. Because tomorrow, well, who knows. And as a wise old friend of mine used to say, "who knows, and who isn't telling."
Well, that's what you get at 6am. Happy Wednesday. Make it a good one.
Love to all.
Mimi
All that said, here I sit at 5:54am. And the prevailing thought in my not fully awake mind is "don't miss the blessings." I mean, I'm thinking about how much has changed in the past year. Things we've missed. New things we've experienced. Things that arose through the hardships of Covid, and things that went away.
A year ago, we were praying for an end to the violence of school shootings. And then schools were shut down, and now parents pray for schools to re-open.
A year ago, we were worrying that kids were spending too much screen time on their phones. And then their screens became their source of learning, their ever valuable connection.
A year ago, I was praying for direction about my work, and heard the repeated whisper of "paint more ~ paint more" and a year later I have an inventory of new work I could barely have imagined.
A year ago, we were smiling at each other with our entire faces, having no idea that we would be hiding behind face-masks for the next ten months, and then some. Oh, I do miss wearing lipstick!
The list, of course, is endless.
I'm not sure this is making sense in type as it has when it rolled through my head (and I'm even less sure of how many are even going to read it so I'll just say it anyway) and I fear I am stating the obvious, but I want to encourage you, implore you, to be mindful of the blessings in your hands, right now, that you may be overlooking. And I say that not in a "YOU need to do this" way but in a "I want to be more mindful myself" way.
What's the saying? Life slips through our hands like grains of sand.
The trick isn't to try to hold onto the sand, or our hands will become full and we won't have room to hold anything new. Rather, pay attention to the grains you hold right now. Because tomorrow, well, who knows. And as a wise old friend of mine used to say, "who knows, and who isn't telling."
Well, that's what you get at 6am. Happy Wednesday. Make it a good one.
Love to all.
Mimi