For Today

                Never forget to wear your invisible crown.

Living The Glad Life

November 5, 2013

Living the Glad Life

Sometimes trying to live a glad life takes you places where you are not quite comfortable.  This morning I am riding The Crescent from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana. My train car is half full, so almost all of us have window seats.  Fall in the South is a wonder to behold and I’m excited about the next seven hours and the wash of color that awaits me.

This is not my usual mode of travel, but I decided to listen to that adventuresome spirit that I have tried so hard to ignore for half a century, to experience something new and different: a solo trip on a train. I’m headed to a conference on dyslexia, so it’s a useful trip, too.  I can’t change all of my stripes at the same time.

I recently read about a great experiment of awareness that asked me to place my hands in my lap in my usual way. For me that was right hand over left.  To feel that then to take my hands away from each other, experience that and then to place them in my lap again in the opposite position.   Which felt more natural? Which felt more alive? What was more alive, even a little uncomfortable?  For me, I felt a little off when my hands were not in their usual position.  It did make me feel more alive and aware.  I’m hoping the same from this trip.

“You came and sang a song over me.”

“Feels like I’m living now, for the very first time.  Feels like I’m breathing, Feels like I’m moving, for the very first time.”

Third Day “Born Again” from their Revelation album.

Mornings in Birmingham, July

Mornings In Birmingham

Awake, Get Ready (for all)

Toothbrush, Make-up (make up what?)

Layers of clothing

Matching shoes

Cell phone into leather bag

Computer, power cord

Into larger leather bag

And coffee, did I say coffee?

First and foremost

Don’t forget the coffee

And readings,

Don’t forget your readings

Proverbs,

And Psalms,

And “Jesus Calling”

And that book on courage.

I am ready,

Ready to drive to the hospital

And sit

And be.

Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love, to work, to play, and to look up at the stars.
Henry Van Dyke

There is so much to be happy about.  The snow came to our town today.  It covered our roof and our green grass and the red birds flew from feeders to trees in quick bursts of joy.  It was cold, very cold for our Southern state, but my youngest and I gathered firewood and stacked it inside, ready for a real winter weather day.  Then the snow stopped, and the sun came out.  Clear blue skies made the snow blinding white on the lawn.  

Maybe because it was so unusual, it made us feel magical for awhile, like we were living in a storybook, or a play.  We laughed and we giggled and we were happy.
The End

The Gratitude Game

"Be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up at the stars."

Henry Van Dyke

Living “The Glad Life”

o  Choose Gratitude.
Gratitude can be a life-changer.  Taking our eyes off of the “I don’t have” and placing them, as a discipline, on the “I have” slowly opens our souls to the abundance that envelopes us.
Our dog is ugly.  Well, he is ugly today.  His latest haircut was given at home and it’s growing out with hair hanging in his eyes.  We visited some dear friends this weekend and their dog is so cute and very well groomed.  I was, of course, jealous.  We have, as a family, decided that part of our budget goal was to stop the bimonthly visits to the groomer for Simon.  He seems to be fine with this plan, but after this weekend, I was dreaming of whisking him right off for a cut and curl.  But as I sit here, with him nestled on my lap, I am repenting.  We will trim his bangs and then let him live the free and easy life of a country dog.  The budget is safe and my jealously is turning into gratefulness.  He is a loyal dog and we love him.

We play the gratitude game, taking turns to share our thankfulness.  It started at Thanksgiving one year.  My youngest and I played it today during our nature walk at the nearby horse ranch.

“I’m thankful to the Lord today for Queen’s Anne’s lace,” I said.

She answered with, “Today I am grateful for orange.”

Yes, she is glad for orange, for the color of orange and for the essence of orange.  If she were a color, she would be…orange.  Alive, vibrant, usually self-assured, she is a giver. She injects into our lives fullness, energy and an honesty that calls me to a higher place of being alive in this moment. 

         Oxford Dictionary defines gratitude as:

“The quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.  It is of late Middle English, from Old French or from the Medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus, ‘pleasing, thankful.’

What is The Glad Life?

What is The Glad Life?

It is a way to live, an invitation to savor life, to breathe in and out its beauty and grace.  It is the gathering of the blush pink rose, carried with love and respect to the old crystal bud vase and placed by the computer screen. It is form and function, inspiration standing by and giving hope to necessity.

Good form is important to the well-lived life.  Captain Hook said it best when he shared that his greatest sorrow was that Peter Pan had “good form” and that he was afraid that at the end of his life, he would be found to be without this essential trait.

Be Still My Soul

I am trying to be still, stay quiet, hide within the Almighty.  A pearl encased within a shiny shell, happy for the peace and security, knowing that when the time is perfect, the pearl will be free, but until, the pearl will be safe.  Still, quiet, hidden, safe, free.

Or a garden enclosed, with a swing.  Lots of lushness, greens of every hue, flowers exploding and all is new everyday. But I am, still, quiet, hidden, safe, free.