Today I Give Thanks for President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Smith Carter

 

 

Today I give thanks for President Jimmy Carter and First Lady Rosalynn Smith Carter, who together provide us with a blueprint for doing good in this world – for 100 years and 96 years, respectively.  If ever a couple deserved a long, happy life, it was them!

 

The two worked together on Jimmy’s campaigns, on White House policies, and, ultimately, on their post-Washington “retirement” of championing human rights, including the rights to health care, housing, and fair elections.

 

What I most respect about the Carters is the way they rebuilt their lives after Jimmy’s defeat.  His term as president was filled with many accomplishments, described extensively in the two days since his death, but his presidency was also rife with turmoil.  During the Carter administration, gas prices soared. Americans were taken hostage in Iran, and an attempt to free them ended in tragedy.  Inflation reached a peak of 14%.  Jimmy’s public approval rating fell below 30%.  His bid for a second term ended in a bitter defeat.  And Rosalynn was right there with him, a partner every step of the way.

 

What I most remember - and ultimately admire the Carters most for - was what happened AFTER the humiliation of their defeat.  No one would have blamed them had they retired to a cushy life of golf, tennis, and cocktail parties.  Yet the Carters rose from the ashes and built a new public life - together.  Together they championed numerous human rights around the world.  The two worked hand-in-hand for the betterment of humankind on health care, fair elections, and housing right up until their deaths.  Together they made a real difference in this world.  What better legacy could there possibly be? 

 

Rosalynn Carter once stated:  "There are only four kinds of people in the world - those that have been caregivers, those that are caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.”  Today I am thankful for Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter, caretakers of the world.  And I hope, in my own smaller way, to follow in their footsteps.

 

Today I Give Thanks for Shooting Stars

 

Today I give thanks for shooting stars.  A couple of mornings ago, I woke up super early.  It was clear and the stars shone alongside a crescent moon when suddenly a meteor streaked across the horizon!  I had all but forgotten about this, but yesterday its image popped into my head, and I mentioned it to my great-niece.  She asked, “What did you wish for?”  Wish for?  I hadn’t even thought about making a wish!

 

So…I figure that it was a pretty good sized shooting star, so maybe its powers can extend beyond one or two days?  What could I wish for?  Let’s see…maybe world peace?  Not sure that one shooting star will do  – maybe I’d better wait for the August meteor showers for that one!

 

Maybe something a little closer to home.  How about maybe I enjoy my family and friends while I’m still here with my wits about me?  That seems like a wish one star could manage – especially with a little extra help from me.  So here it goes… “From today forward until I’m no longer here, may I enjoy friends, revel in my family, and bring a bit of light into the life of those I meet along the way.”

 

In the following two stanzas and refrain from Carrie Newcomer’s song The Gathering of Spirits, our lives are described as different types of stars:

 

And don't we make it shine
Aren't we standing in the center of
Something rare and fine…

 

Some glow like embers
Like a light through colored glass
Some give it all in one great flame

Throwing kisses as they pass

 

So let it go my love my truest
Let it sail on silver wings
Life's a twinkling and that's for certain
But it's such a fine thing…

 

Today I give thanks for shooting stars.  I hope they always remind me of the promises I’ve made and the kind of life I hope to live fully to my end.

Today I Give Thanks for Eight and a Half Year Olds

Today I give thanks for eight and a half year olds!  And aren’t they truly the best? 

 

My great-niece Angelina arrived yesterday afternoon and, being 8 ½, caught sight of me and immediately shouted “Aunt Marcy!”  then ran up and gave me a humongous hug.  Just what I needed after a long, warm day of cooking up a post-Christmas meal of family favorites.

 

Eight and a half year olds have retained an incredible sense of curiosity and wonder, too.  Angelina’s first response to our fabulous view of the ocean and sky, “Wow!  This is extremely gorgeous!”   Even viewing a container ship through her uncle’s binoculars brought about the same kind of response, thinking about where those containers were from and where they might be going.

 

Eight and a half year olds still have a sense of play, never tiring of Uno and dominoes, silly old TV shows, and chocolate chip cookies.  Yet they are also amazingly independent and can generally be counted on to remember their manners – especially with strangers.  When our next door neighbors left this morning, they donated an brand new boogie board to Angelina, who ran right over to the fence and thanked him profusely.  She’s off right now at the beach testing it out!

 

We’ve discovered a limit, however, with lizards, specifically the six inch chameleon on her bedroom wall.  “Wait a minute! That thing was there all night next to my bed?”  “Probably,” I replied, “It was protecting you by eating the mosquitoes.”  “Hmmm…”. She’s still not sure about the usefulness of that chameleon, but is finally willing to go back into her room after her dad and uncle worked together to corral the tiny lizard and place it outside in the garden.

 

Eight and a half year olds.  Full of merriment and awe!  Better medicine than anything else for all-around tiredness and malaise.  Today I give thanks for 8 ½ year olds.  I believe everyone could use one in their life!

 

Today I Give Thanks for the Stars

Today I give thanks for the stars.  This morning, I woke up to see the Big Dipper, and it appeared close enough that I could reach out and touch it.  There was a cruise ship out on the horizon, and a small plane circled the mountains to land at a nearby airport.  All of it – the ocean, the volcanic hills and mountains, the ship, the plane, and me – we were all somehow anchored by the steady presence of those stars.

 

In generations past, our ancestors used stars to guide them.  Two and a half millennia ago, people from what is now Indonesia sailed across the Pacific Ocean to populate Tahiti and later Hawaii.  And in our own country, enslaved people followed the stars forming a “drinking gourd” along waterways and over mountains, northward to freedom.  These people formed strong communities and founded new lives for themselves and their descendants. 

 

Christopher Columbus used the North Star and a quadrant to cross the Atlantic Ocean, trying to find a different route to India and spices and gold.  He landed instead on this Island, Puerto Rico, during his second voyage, torturing and enslaving the gentle Taino people.  His horrific actions landed him in front of a Spanish tribunal, yet he died a free and very wealthy man.  But at what cost to our future?  Today we still must reckon with consequences of the centuries of horrific colonialism Columbus set in motion.

 

Who and what are our guiding stars today?  By following them, what are we seeking?  And what kind of a future are we creating?  These are the questions I find myself grappling with.

 

So today I give thanks to those stars that, whether they are in the sky or are within the people and ideas here on earth, anchor us to what is real today and guide us to what will be tomorrow.  May we choose our stars wisely!

Today I Give Thanks for the Ocean

Today I give thanks for the ocean, brilliant turquoise in the sunlight and a deep mallard green-blue during the storms last night.  It is soft and gentle against my ankles when my toes seek firm sand, but then the power of the waves combined with the undertow nearly knock me down with their strength.

 

Water connects us all.  It is mapped in our bodies with the blood flow through our veins and arteries that transports nutrients and oxygen.  “In 1897 French physician Rene Quinton discovered a 98% match between our blood plasma and sea water…Our bodies have been shaped and formed by water - we have an ocean inside us. Like the Earth, we are 70% saltwater.” (Oceanographic Magazine)

 

We humans are just a part of the biosphere, and it saddens me to realize how we have collaboratively managed to damage this wonderful gift of life, treating the ocean more like a sewer than a relative to be cherished.  When the oceans are healthy, we are healthy.  It’s as simple as that!

 

I’m incredibly fortunate to be in Puerto Rico right now, where the hard work of restoring and maintaining the ocean and its shoreline and all waterways across the island is bringing back its rightful title, “La Isla del Encanto,” or “The Island of Enchantment.”

 

Today I give thanks for the ocean and for everyone working to keep the oceans – and humankind – healthy and strong for generations to come.  Together let’s make the earth “La Planeta del Encanto”!

Today I Give Thanks for Rainbows

 

Thankful Everyday 12-23-24

https://thankfulevery.blogspot.com/

 

Today I give thanks for rainbows.  What a wonderful surprise!  I woke up this morning to a full rainbow, from the hills to the ocean and cresting over the beach downhill from us here in Puerto Rico.  The past couple of days have been rainy and kind of gray on and off, so this was an enchanting moment.

 

As author Saul Bellow said: "Unexpected intrusions of beauty. This is what life is.”  Life can be full of beautiful moments, IF I let them “intrude”!  So today I give thanks for rainbows and for life’s little intrusions of beauty everywhere around us.

Today I Give Thanks for Feeling Ungrateful

 

  

Today I give thanks for feeling ungrateful.  Couldn’t sleep last night, even after a cup of sleepytime tea!  Finally got up at 4.  My mind is not completely here yet.  Over the past year, so many friends and relatives have died or are dying.  No weddings or baptisms in sight quite yet.  I’m anxious about our country’s future.

 

Finally, I decided to force myself to find just one thing to be thankful for:  “I am so grateful that while setting up my laptop in the dark just now, I did NOT manage to tip over my hot tea!”  Thank you!  Because spilling hot tea all over oneself as well as a table full of notes, books, and magazines is never enjoyable.

 

And just like - that one little peek into my usually full metaphorical gratitude box made me dig a little deeper… 

 

OK, my knees, for some reason, are not cranky today.  Yay! 

 

The bags under my eyes don’t look as bad as they should.  Yay!

 

My warm tea is truly yummy.  Yay!

 

I wrapped up a spreadsheet I had been laboring over.  Yay!  Yay!

 

I’m getting ready to pack for a vacation.  Super Yay!

 

Who knew?  Maybe taking advantage of being a bit cranky, out-of-sorts, and ungrateful is helping me find all these amazing little things that I am genuinely thankful for.  And – surprise, surprise – I feel a tad better now, too.

 

I’m definitely going to test this out the next time I’m feeling so blue! 

Today I Give Thanks for Music

 Today I give thanks for music.

Is there anything better for lifting your mood than music?

 

Today my husband and I drove east to see our granddaughter play violin in the Auburn Community Orchestra’s  Christmas Concert.  What a beautiful event, especially Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus at the end! 

 

On the road there and back, we listened to our local radio station playing nothing but Christmas music, mostly classic tunes from our childhood.  And despite everything going on in our lives – the political turmoil and many personal losses – these corny tunes gave us a few moments to think about other things.  Was that Mariah Carey or Kelly Clarkson, Bing Crosby or Dean Martin?  When did the song “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” first appear?  Was “Meet Me in St. Louis” a great movie – or did it just have a great song with “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” especially when sung by Judy Garland?

 

This morning, my meditation app asked me, “Do you have time to sit down and listen to a special piece of music today – while doing nothing else at all?”  I admit that I rarely seem to do this, so I took a few minutes and found solace in Jon Batiste’s “Beethoven Blues.”  Batiste beautifully reimagines iconic pieces I practiced when taking piano lessons as a child.  Here’s a link of Batiste playing “Für Elise” on YouTube.

 

Please take time to really enjoy music today – it really is a tonic for the soul.

 

Today I give thanks for work

 Today I give thanks for work.

Today I give thanks for work.  Hard work, simple work, easy work, complex work – but meaningful work.  Work that us sweat physically or mentally, as well as work that may sometimes be mindless, boring, or repetitive.  Work that makes a difference in our lives and in the lives of others.

 

This morning, our church community celebrated the life of Ralph Kuitems, age 93, a man who spent his career in construction, mostly as a construction superintendent.  The photo presents the legacy of his work here in Rochester.  It would be hard to travel more than a few miles around the area without passing at least one of the buildings he helped construct.  Those of us who were lucky enough to get to know Ralph learned of the depth as well as the breadth of his work – and we quickly felt the satisfaction and pride he had for jobs well done. 

 

Today our community also learned of the death late last night of Father Jim Callan, a man who had a profound impact on thousands of people here in Rochester, around the country, and even abroad.  As I wrote not long ago, Fr. Jim was an illuminator, one who listened and made others feel seen – and then encouraged them.  The depth of his faith led him to envision a church that welcomed all people equally, a vision that inspired us all.  His belief in the words and life of Jesus, and especially Matthew 25, provide us now with a pathway toward this vision.

 

Both these men exemplify lives well lived and work well done.  They reminded me of Marge Percy’s poem, “To Be of Use.”  This is the final stanza:

 

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

Today I give thanks for love – and for loss

 

Today I give thanks for love – and for loss

Today I give thanks for love – and for loss.  They go hand-in-hand.  We cannot love deeply without knowing that the physical body of the one we love will, at some point, leave us, or that we will leave them.  The body dies, but the spirit lives on within us, who continue with our lives.

 

The Japanese have a term for this bittersweet poignancy, the transience, of all living things: mono-no-aware.  Our gardens bloom for a time, then the flowers fade, and the leaves fall.  And in the same way, we are born, we grow and struggle, laugh and love, and then we, too, fade and die.

 

Would we, could we love as deeply without the shadow of death lingering constantly behind us?  I doubt it.  We are simply left with the spirit, the love, that remains with us, even after death. 

 

Yesterday evening our church came together to celebrate the life and spirit of our priest Father Jim Callan, whose physical life is coming to an end.  Numerous ministry groups and individuals shared Fr. Jim’s influence on their lives – and on the work they have been able to do in Jesus’ name.  The deep love our community has for him is amazing.  His influence in our parish, overwhelming.  His spirit will go on, even after his body has left us.

 

At the end of our evening together, Rev. Celie Katovitch shared a poem that captures this beautifully.  Here is the final stanza:

 

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

 

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

 

-          e. e. cummings, “i carry your heart with me”

 

Today I Give Thanks for the Beauty to Be Found Just by Looking

Today I give thanks for the beauty to be found just by looking.

 

“You can observe a lot just by watching.”  - Yogi Berra

 

I found a little bit of beauty remaining in my back deck garden, despite below freezing temperatures and rain.  Right where I rarely take the time to observe the plants closely – there it was.  Long after most other plants became dormant, this Maple Leaf Geranium, originally developed to celebrate Canada’s Centennial, was still going strong.  Lovely!

 

It reminds me that no matter the difficult weather, no matter the political climate, there’s always room for beauty.  But we must take the time to watch for it. 

 

As the winds blow and the snow falls, may we each take time today to watch and to enjoy observing something beautiful right there in our midst. 

 

Today I Give Thanks for Everything – and Everyone – Who Proclaims It’s Not Too Late!

Today I Give Thanks for Everything – and Everyone – Who Proclaims It’s Not Too Late!

 

“You can either get busy living or get busy dying.”

-          Stephen King, “The Shawshank Redemption”

 

Well, the tiny dill plant pictured here has made its decision known:  It decided to get busy living!  Despite the below freezing temperature of last week, this little one made its choice to get on with the business of life.

 

Perhaps there’s a lesson for me and for everyone who feels it’s too late to start something new.  Whether that’s a new career in one’s forties, starting a new volunteer ministry at 58, learning Chinese in one’s sixties, or getting physically fit after 70.  Even finding true love in one’s nineties!  I’ve watched others do these things – and a few of them I’ve managed myself.

 

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

-          Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day”

 

The one true thing about life is this:  We will die.  Plant or animal, we die.  Only while living,  do we have the chance to get busy with life.  So…what will I do with my “one wild and precious life”?  What will you do with yours?

 

Today I am thankful for the cold, gray rain of December

 

Today I am thankful for the cold, gray rain of December.  Really!  Although these rains muddy our shoes and dampen our spirits, they also create a contrast that adds a nice punch to life.  Once the skies clear and smiles return, we can appreciate the sun and the bright snow more than ever.  Believe it or not, my California grandchildren get tired of what they call “Sunshine, sunshine, every day, sunshine!”

 

Pictured here is the grave of my great- great- great-grandfather Nehemiah Cleaveland.  Next to him, his wife’s headstone reads, “Hannah Parsons Cleaveland, Age 104.”  If I, therefore, have even an outside chance of living to 104, I’d better get used to – and make the most of -these cold, gray, rainy days!