Little Things

June 14, 2020

Gratitude is a repetitive and modest art. It’s not something that you do once and done, and it doesn’t necessarily focus on major or life-altering events. It revels in the details that we often overlook as we are overwhelmed by the incessant barrage of media insisting that it’s offering deserves our complete attention and ultimate loyalty. The evening news won’t tell you about a baby’s first steps, a middle aged couple working hard to raise their children to be persons of character and faith, or of the elderly couple still holding hands after fifty years. 

The world scene is replete with fear, hatred, prejudice, greed, and lust for power, sex, or money. It seethes with anger, destruction, and hopelessness. My world today began with breakfast at my son’s, continued with gathering (twice) for worship, listening to my other son, his sister and daughter harmonizing as they led the singing. It included driving through some beautiful countryside, seeing the contrast between the browns of newly plowed fields with the green of young corn pushing through, and the trees in full leaf. Lunch with my wife, conversation and dessert with our kids and grandkids, teaching one grandson how to weedwhack the edges of our yard, reading quietly, and a visit from a friend to scope out a couple trees we need taken down rounded out the day. 

None of this was earth-shattering, but all of it is thankworthy, and I am grateful for the little things which make up the bulk of my life.