I recently celebrated a birthday and while I appreciated all the birthday wishes on my Facebook wall, the correspondence that meant the most to me was a 4-page handwritten letter from my grandmother (who also sweetly included a $10 bill).
We named our daughter after my grandmother, who is one of my spiritual heroes. One of the qualities I most admire about her is her ability to notice and cherish things. Here's a paragraph from that letter: "Grandpa enjoys watching the squirrels here. There are 3 gray ones & one black one. (Uncle) John brought him in some corn & they really like that. It's fun to watch them, play & eat."
Those sentences may not seem like much to you, but I Iove those words because they describe the way my grandparents notice things like squirrels and then quietly observe and (I have no doubt) give thanks for them. There are so many things I miss in my life as my eyes stay glued to my iPhone. Meanwhile, the sacredness with which God has imbued this world keeps popping out. May God give all of us the awareness to notice.
"The act of noticing helps you realize that your life is already suffused with the presence of God."
-- James Martin in "The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything |
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