Be Glad In It
“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
“This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalms 118:24
A new day. A new year. After a few years of making plans to only have them thwarted by an ongoing pandemic, resolutions are hollow and a set up for disappointment. And yet, and yet. Hope keeps calling. Joy demands attention. Light keeps breaking through. Resolutions with commitment and work pull us forward. This will not go on forever. Nothing does and there are no do-overs as hard as we try to change the past. Our response is more important than the circumstances. That’s where our power lies.
In the unmaking and unraveling, we can reclaim, reshape, repurpose the materials and tools we have been given to create something new from what’s already available and in reach. Abundance over scarcity creates options and avenues to follow.
Put your focus, effort and attention on that which you can influence and stop wasting time trying to fix others and waiting for the perfect circumstances that never arrive. Be bold and fierce, present and engaged in this day.
We know all too well that we can’t predict the future. But we can enter this day, give it our best, whatever that is for you right now. Hope. Light. Joy. Today and on the road ahead. Be glad in this day.
“Gratitude is riches. Complaint is poverty.” – Doris Day
It is often that your blog speaks to me personally. Today in particular, the lines could be written straight from my heart. Indeed there has been a recent unravelling, and as I look at the unknown, the attitudes I’ve chosen are echoed in your writing. I also have been a writer, an activist, also a public servant and most important a mother. A graduate degree in political philosophy/economy guides much of my thinking, though spiritual truths prevail over those. Though I blog infrequently myself, and though I follow a few, it is your writing that I consistently read and return to for meaning. So first thank you, and second, it may be we have reason to connect. -Georgina Tobiska, the Methow Valley, WA State
Thank you so much for your generous comments. Very much valued and appreciated. Happy New Year!