(Digital Painting by Jeremiah Morelli)

Dear Reader:

Oh how I love this scene...Lanterns and books leading me on my path through life amid shrouded misty mysteries…I can’t imagine anything more perfect-two of my all-time favorite images! This is one of those paintings I just want to climb into and start the journey.

When I finish reading a good book, the kind you don’t want to end, the story stays with me long after the beautiful time I spent with it, and sometimes, just sometimes…we bump into our “old friend” again and are blown away, once more, with a thought, a story that touches our heart and soul.

I don’t find these books by accident… I have come to realize…they find me. Such is the case of Small Graces by Kent Nerburn. When we find an author who looks at life the way we do…don’t we feel such relief and happiness? Someone finally “gets me.”

I keep getting drawn back to this little book and yesterday, when I picked it up and started re-reading it from the very beginning…I didn’t get past the introduction before realizing I had met another ‘soul author’ out in this big world of ours. His words and thoughts have been my words and thoughts…he just is able to explain it to me so simply that I now can understand my own thoughts better. What a gift!

One thought crosses my mind a lot…and it concerns an age-old human question on whether I am “wimping out” by not trying harder to be more than my life to date. I look at famous people, whom I admire, and wonder  what made them who they became? Have I just not been willing enough to try to be something more?

*And then I read this: (excerpts-Small Graces) and a sense of peace enveloped me.

“We look longingly at those who shine a great light into this world-Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King- and our lives and accomplishments seem paltry in comparison.” 

“We dream of the touch on our shoulder that will call us to greatness, to an act that would change the world. But the touches on our shoulder call us only to the small acts of everyday life-changing diapers, changing light bulbs, changing schedules. Far from being exalted beings, we seem to be prisoners of the ordinary, and we are haunted by the insignificance of our days.”

“It is not our task to judge the worthiness of our path; it is our task to walk our path with worthiness. Forget the great light, we must learn to trust the small light we are given, and to value the light that we can shed into the lives of those around us.”

…“We need to find ways to lift the moments of our daily lives-to celebrate and consecrate the ordinary, to allow the light of spiritual awareness to illuminate our days. For though we may not live a holy life, we live in a world alive with holy moments. We need only take the time to bring these moments into the light.”

So until tomorrow…

When Kent Nerburn dedicated his book it was to “Those who search for the quiet God, who seek the  spirit in the small moments of our everyday life. These are the people who offer a smile or a hand to someone in need. They bow their heads at a moment of beauty that passes through their lives, and say a simple prayer of gratitude to the spirit that has created us all.

This book is a celebration of the ordinary, a reminder than when all else is stripped away, a life lived with love is enough.“

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

*Forget the great light, we must learn to trust the small light we are given, and to value the light that we can shed into the lives of those around us.”

*Beth…When I re-read this line by Nerburn I couldn’t help but think of Frank Cuthbert…everyone’s beloved uncle (whether genetically kin or not) and how you told me that some of his final thoughts centered on having you help him put flowers in the windows one last time… so those of us who lived each day to see these beautiful creations could enjoy them right up to the end. What an amazing gesture of generosity and love of fellow man!

As the sun set, my magic hour outside with my garden, I took a picture of the back of the garden path and then climbed up my new stairs above the garage and took some aerial views…so pretty at sunset.