Daily Bread of Attention

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“People encounter God under shady oak trees, on riverbanks, at the tops of mountains, and in long stretches of barren wilderness. God shows up in whirlwinds, starry skies, burning bushes, and perfect strangers. When people want to know more about God, the son of God tells them to pay attention to the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, to women kneading bread and workers lining up for their pay. Whoever wrote this stuff believed that people could learn as much about the ways of God from paying attention to the world as they could from paying attention to scripture. What is true is what happens, even if what happens is not always right. People can learn as much about the ways of God from business deals gone bad or sparrows falling to the ground as they can from reciting the books of the Bible in order. They can learn as much from a love affair or a wildflower as they can from knowing the Ten Commandments by heart.”― Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith

Skies ablaze with color and hue
Flowers in bloom
A song that moves you to dance
A long embrace
Smiles to laughter
A text or call to say “hi”
Daily bread of attention and gratitude
Overflowing, abundant, enough, imperfect
From what’s missing or what was to what is
Finding nourishment on the ground we stand
To change our view and be changed
To love well today.

“People are not hurdles on the road to God. They are the road.”—Martin Buber, Between Man and Man