Each Wednesday morning I meet my friend Jan at 7:15AM and we walk & talk the River Trail. We take joy in one another's company, in a book we read together & discuss and the natural world around us that we are so fortunate to call home.
The book we are reading now is"One Thousand Gifts…A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are" by Ann Voskamp. Habits can imprison us and it’s habits that can free us. Should I focus on all Russ is loosing and in turn on all the ways my life, our lives, are changing or should I turn that focus inward (or should I say outward?) and 'take joy'. I think one of the most important things in life is to be aware of what I have and not of what I don’t have. If I concentrate only on what I want (Russ not to have PD, Russ to regain his mobility, Russ to not worry about what others think, not having to move from our beloved property and solitude), I will miss the blessings and gifts in front of me now. Ann Vancamp suggests that by naming all the little gifts that God bestows on us each and every day, we allow ourselves to see and savor every moment. Her book challenges one to 'TAKE THE JOY DARE'.
I have. I have set up a Google Doc and Russ and I can each go in and add our 'gifts'. I'm wondering how long it will take us to get to 1000.
Now the book might be a bit 'girly' for some. Certainly the dust cover might dissuade some from even picking it up. So perhaps you can be grateful there is a dust cover and take it off to read the book incognito.
Here are a few quotes from the book I find wholeheartedly engaging…they speak to me. Jan and I have had a wonderful time pondering…
"What does it mean to live full of grace? To live fully alive?"
"If it were up to me…" and then the words pound, desperate and hard, "I'd wrote this story differently."
"How do we live fully so we are fully ready to die?"
"Why do I spend so much of my living hours struggling to see it? Do we truly stumble so blind that we must be affronted with blinding magnificence for our blurry soul-sight to recognize grandeur?"
"In the midst of what seems a mess, in the tripping up and stumbling down of all hopes, give thanks?"
"We only enter into the full life if our faith gives thanks."
"Moving the ink (curser?) across the page opens up the eyes; he may not understand how it sheds light, focus its lens, but only he knows 'that there are eyes in pencils and pens'."
"Just naming it…Just naming it. When you don't have the name for something, you're haunted by shadows. It ages you."
"Naming offer gifts recognition."
"The work, the kids, the meals, the laundry, the ministry, a life so full it can seem empty."
"I just want to do my one life well."
and I love this one…. "When did I stop thinking life was dessert?"
Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with the weight of full attention. This writing it down - is sort of like…unwrapping love. Can I live this life well? Am I willing to let go of the negative, the worry and the unknown and focus on those tiny gifts right in front of me? Will I bless others more completely if I rearrange the way I 'do life'? I'm willing to try… Google Docs here I come!