Thursday, May 28, 2015

Gratitude for this day in May in Vancouver

Thank you God for this day.  Thank you for the sleep of the night and the dreams of friends and gatherings. Thank you for the humour of the musicians in my dreams and the celebration of spirituality and community. Thank you for the dog waiting beside me so that we could share the morning wakening.  Thank you for the groomer he is booked to visit as frankly, God, he’s a bit rank, not in a particularly unpleasant way, but definitely in a dog needs grooming kind of way.  Thank you for kisses. Thank you for the home I have, this roof over my head and indoor plumbing. Thank you for running water to flush the toilet and clean water to wash my hands and face.  Thank you for the water running into the galley sink that allowed me to wash the left over dishes with the dishwasher detergent so well suited for that job.  Thank you God for the Italian stove top expresso maker and the ground coffee in the vacuum seal container and the spoon I used to dish it out. Thank you for the propane and the fire that comes into my home but doesn’t burn it down.  Thank you for all the engineering safety features that I so often take for granted in my daily endeavours. Thank you for all the hidden work of construction and engineering and all the men who have worked to make life safe and convenient for me.  Thank you for all those who have for tens of thousands of years advanced ideas of safe and efficient and graceful living that have gone before setting the stage for the benefits I received today. Thank you for the propane refrigerator and the half and half cream that I bought in a grocery yesterday. Thank you for all those who daily toil to deliver produce from the country. Thank you for the honey that I bought in the local convenience store that comes in a plastic bear container and squeezed out so nicely into  my coffee after I poured it into my orange Harley Davidson mug I’d just washed in the sink.  Thank you for the smell of coffee and the promise of coffee to awaken and refresh.  Thank you God for my NIV Study Bible I have here and the Emmett Fox daily readings.  These are inspiring and awaken my heart mind and soul as I sip my coffee. Thank you for the sweet banana and nectarine that tasted so good and especially the yoghurt that comes with blue berry syrup in the bottom of the white plastic container.  Thank you for the sweet taste of the yoghurt and the knowledge that with the fruit I will start my day in a healthy way.
I know Lord there are millions yet in the world who have none of these luxuries of modern living and I pray that they too will be blessed someday if it be thy will and their desire that they too can experience a life beyond my wildest dreams in this way, surrounded by the toys and tools of adult hood in this western civilized world that has taken so long to make and had so many years of peace thanks to the work and efforts of so many men and women before me.  Thank you for the day I am about to enter on.  I have a shower I can wash with. I have fresh clean clothes to dress with. I look forward to going outside where if I see my neighbours they will smile and greet me. I have an advanced vehicle made in a miraculous way to use gasoline to propel a remarkable engine of state of the art design that will power my drive. Today rather than taking my beloved Mazda Miata sports car, the closest thing to a motorcycle on the road today, I actually plan to take my Harley Davidson Electraglide Motorcycle with the “Dog Palace’ box made for Gilbert to sit behind me and enjoy the ride as much as I do. There’s an adventure in this as I never know for certain if I will survive a journey to work.  I will have the advantage of the HOV lane so the daily frustration of the commute in traffic will be exchanged for the life threatening exhilaration of trusting complete strangers to signal turns and drive less erratically than they so often appear. I always have mixed feelings about this but please God be with me and protect Gilbert and I on the ride to work.
Thank you for the office I have to go to. Thank you for my increasingly knowledgeable and helpful assistant. Thank you for my desk and chair. Thank you for the patients who come to see me and the knowledge of my teachers and colleagues that has given me the means to help them as best as I can. Help me to address the knots they have so often tied themselves up in. Help me to better serve them. Help me to make their paths straight. Help me to lighten their burden of care and pain.  Help me to help them stop hurting themselves with stubbornness and self condemnation and fear and anger.  Help me to choose the right medications and make the right diagnosis. Help me to be gentle and kind and pleasant even when they are not because their illnesses are such a burden and people in their lives have so often been so unkind.  Help me have empathy.  
Thank you for work. Thank you for my family and friends. Please God help those I know today who are facing cancer to heal. Help those I love and care for. Help all my family and friends in their endeavours today.  Guide me in my speech and action. Help me to be a channel of Thy love and peace.  Be with me Lord every breath I take.  Help me to know thy presence under all condition. Help me to be less selfish and self centred.
God I love you. I love this day. Thank you for all you have done for me and this world. Thank you for the drama and comedy and intrigue and mystery of daily living. Thank you for the game and hide and seek and tragedy and comedy.  Thank you for the sets and stage and actors and yes Lord even thank you for the critics and the bores who make me so much more appreciate those who participate. Thank you for the builders and creators. 
Thank you for the air and sun and water and blue sky and sunshine and green leaves.  Thank you for this computer, these fingers and the ability to write and communicate, blogspace and Facebook, the social media and hard drives and memory and just the fun of digital global communication. I am so thankful for the ability to communicate with friends continents away, family provinces away and my iPhone that connects me with friends on the other side of the city day or night.  There are so many gifts and miracles, so much you bless me with so that my glass is overflowing. Help me to know this always. Help me to remember that this body and this skin is a gift and that I am blessed with eyesight and sound and that having this life is a mystery. I don’t know how I came by it and I certainly didn’t ‘buy’ it with ‘money’ so it’s a miracle of my mother and father’s doing and the very fabric of the universe that you have created for me to participate in, Creator.  Thank you for this. Help me to be ever grateful for all these gifts I have been given, this very life I know as a mystery. Help me to stay conscious of the sacred and avoid the traps of self pity, anger, and especially fear, Lord.  I have, looking back, been so often afraid, especially about ‘security’ and ‘relationships’ and yet here so many years later I’m still alive and still have the basic necessities of life and much much more.  Thank you for bringing me this far on the journey of life and guide me further and protect me from dangers as you so well have.  Heal those parts of me that are painful today and help me to be well for this day that I better might serve you, Creator in this Creation. 
Thank you Lord Jesus Christ.  

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