January Intentions

   During my walk outside today, I decided to join one of my weekly 12-step meetings from my phone via Zoom. A woman I know and love was on the call. No longer able to drive and dealing with some cognitive decline, her home is a small room in an assisted living community. I visited her there several months ago, and was stunned by the beautiful place she had created in her tiny space. It was filled with artwork and treasured keepsakes. Her bed linens and sitting chair were a clean, bright white. And a large plate-glass window let in lots of cheerful daylight. 
         Hanging in front of my friend’s window was a glass prism that cast rainbows on the walls of her bedroom. Those colors of red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet splashed across her today as she sat on her bed and a few of us chatted before the Zoom meeting got underway. 
          As we talked, her rainbow-streaked silver hair and soft face reminded me that there is more beauty than we can often see or even imagine . . . much like the explosion of colors that comprise white light. The natural world and my daily life easily and generously provide me with joyful and exquisite moments. I just need to show up and take a closer look. 
           I don’t generally make New Year’s resolutions, but I am trying to be more intentional about how I live each day . . . and whether I’ve taken time to notice and experience those moments of wonder and awe that are freely given by the Universe. Poet Jimmy Santiago Baca reflects on these ideas, too, as he jogs past a flock of robins: 

I feel foolish, 
like those silly robins jumping on the ditch boughs
when I run by them. 
Those robins do not have the grand style of the red-tailed hawk, 
no design, no dream, just robins acting stupid. 
They’ve never smoked cigarettes, drank whiskey, consumed drugs as I have. 
In their mindless
fluttering about
filled with nonsense,
they tell me how they 
love the Great Spirit, 
scold me not to be self-pitying,
to open my life
and make this day a bough on a tree
leaning over eternity, where eternity flows forward
and with day the river runs
carrying all that falls in it. 
Be happy Jimmy, they chirp, 
Jimmy, be silly, make this day a tree
leaning over the river eternity 
and fuss about in its branches. 

A Happy New Year to all of you.                
Warmly,
Rev. Terry