Another long week has come to an end. I am grateful at this moment for the quiet I am experiencing in this moment. It passed, and I enjoyed it while it lasted. The quiet, I mean. I watched a program on television a number of years ago that said that there is virtually no place on earth that is truly quiet, that even out in the wilderness the sounds of nature can in some places be just as loud as a noisy city street. I wonder sometimes as I look at the faces of the people around me if they are longing for quiet as much as I do at times. I think I am talking about companionable silence versus solitude. Solitude I have, quiet is a little more elusive.
I am grateful tonight for all the lessons that gratitude is teaching me, or rather what I am learning from concentrating attention each day on the blessings that are present in my life. Though I still have much to learn about what it means to truly live a life of gratitude, to truly walk my path with a grateful, open heart, I feel like I have come a long distance in a short time. The span of my short life–these 55 years–are not even a blip on the cosmic radar screen; my presence on the timeline of the planet is tiny. And yet each beat of my heart reminds me that I matter.
It has indeed been a long and tiri g week. I haven’t slept long enough for the past several weeks, so I need to attend to my physical wellbeing a little better than I have. And I have to continue to remind myself to breathe deeply and often. I find myself exhaling a lot because I realize I have been holding my breath. So I plan to exhale a lot this weekend and refresh myself in the days ahead. And as much as I’d like to sleep in tomorrow, I have things on my at home to-do list that mean I’ll sleep a little later than 6 a.m. but not much later. I am grateful for another day, another week, no matter how tiring. It’s all good.
I’m going to close early tonight; I’ve fallen asleep a number of times as I’ve been typing–always a signal to me to put the lid down on the laptop and go to sleep. I will be back here tomorrow, God willing, to share more thoughts on and experiences with gratitude. Until then, may we all rest well and refresh and renew ourselves through sleep. So be it!
