small things

  I woke up at 4:30 this morning with the words "small things" drifting in and out of my mind. I now just accept without question that something will come that will bless me and perhaps others.

The list of small things started this way, each item making me smile:

....... the yellow butterfly wing I found years ago that I can't seem to throw away even if Marie Kondo who wrote "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" suggests I should.....this green and brown used, somewhat battered journal........ bright eyed fawns skittering in the back yard.... cicadas as big as my thumb that have kept me company all summer....... haiku, that wondrous small poetry form that leads us to the now........ a small shiny black lady bug rosary given by a friend that reminds me of the one I gave away on the Camino 7 years ago. That one to an older French gentleman who, unbeknownst to me, had lost his the day before on the Path.......A drawing of a tree from my friend Missy, so perfect, hanging in a small frame on my wall....a print I bought at a consignment store last week, it is a drawing of a hand giving flowers to another hand and it warms me when I think that my husband still buys me flowers,after all these years..

And that day, 20 years ago, when I took my little grandson to the pool in his neighborhood where  we bobbed and floated to his smiles and chortles. I wanted to spend all my days with this little boy. We would go the the park and bounce a ball, play in the dirt with little cars, just being.This little boy turns 21 next week and what a man he has become. He is good. Whenever he visits, I look in his face to see if he has changed and I always say, "you are still so good." He is. He has always cared about his siblings.Once, a few years back I took just him out for ice cream. Before we left the store he said that we had to find a way to take some to his siblings.Yes, that is who he is and soon he will serve a larger purpose in the U.S. Navy.

My last story is about a lady who I have encountered walking in my neighborhood.She gives me a big smile and today said these words:  "how blessed we are to be alive and in the beautiful world that God created just for us".This is small church to me..as inspiring as any.

                                                    You are behind me
                                                 and before me, O God,
                                                    you lay Your Hand 
                                                        upon me...Ps 139:5