As a grandparent I have plenty of regrets about pictures that I wasn’t able to take… pictures that get more beautiful every time I remember them…unlike other regrets that also live on in my memory.
There’s something about being on the beach that I find to be pure pleasure: the sunshine, the beauty of the water and the waves, the cold splashing, the swimming, the joining a laughing bunch of people in the water.
“OK God”, I say. “I really want to publish this trilogy, in the year to come. And I’m trusting this dream to you (again) believing that you will either make it happen or, if it doesn’t, that you’ve got something better planned.”
“We just want to rest,” we kept saying. “Our lives at home are so busy. We just want to get away, rest, sit on the beach, enjoy the sunshine.” And I meant it. I was looking forward to time away, time off, unstructured time, time to sit and look at the water. Time to write. Time to put my feet up and read a beach novel.
Yet, I am a human being. Fractious. Contrary. Very like my 22-month-old grandson Lucas, who, the moment he gets the toy he wants, puts it aside and wants another.
Everyone has their favorite games to play with babies and toddlers. I love to do interactive games and teach babies the hand motions that go with. Like Mother Goose’s “Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker’s man,” and the nursery rhyme “The itsy-bitsy spider”. However, my favorite game to play with babies and toddlers is peekaboo.
I have given my will and my life to the God of my understanding, and this is what He tells me to do: Yes, take the actions that are in my power to do to change this world, to help others, to stand up for what I believe. And then, Love. Love myself. Love those I live with, love those around me. Love the world by sharing with it my gifts and the best that I have. “Sending acts of love out into this world at this time can be seen as a daring and audacious stand against the darkness in our world,” I was told recently. So be it.
My prayer for the New Year is that I be able to let go and be filled with these Spirit gifts. My prayer for you is the same. May you be able to take in the spiritual gifts of simplicity, joy and love, now and in the busy year ahead.
I’m 17 months old and I don’t need to learn to talk. I have a language of my own that works perfectly well.
My recent cataract surgeries have improved my sight so much that everything looks more detailed, more colorful and brighter than I have seen in decades.
I am thrilled with the carnival of color on the trees in our back yard: orange, red, gold, bronze and fading green, all bouncing vigorously in the breeze. I marvel at the bright glory of serrated-edged golden river birch leaves against an intense blue sky.
Looking back, I see how Aunt Barbara accepted the constant physical suffering she went through in her later years… and, instead of choosing self-pity and dwelling on her losses, found room inside herself for God to fill with kindness, caring for others, and love.
