Thank You

Thank you for the birds that have returned to my feeders.

Thank you for the calls of the geese in formation, flying south.

Thank you for my family, my dear husband, my son, my sister who calls me on the way home from work in faraway Virginia, for the football fanatics and the artists, the cruise enthusiasts.  For sending hearts and kissy-face emojis, because we are hundreds of miles apart.

Thank for for bringing Taylor back from the edge of death in May.

Thank you for Millet, Matisse, the graffiti artists who have wowed the brick walls in my neighborhood.

Thank you for the memory of laughter with absent loved ones.

Thank you for warmth.  For bread.  For water.  For clean lettuce and for new books.

For Mr. Rogers and Rilke.  For friendship and yoga.  For all that I can’t even remember at this moment, but which I will never take for granted.

And for this view, above, that I can have each afternoon on my walk in the park near my home that Frederick Law Olmsted designed to be a place where people with every kind of story and condition can find silence and return to themselves.

Earlier this fall, I decided to devote a class to mindfulness practices.  I thought I’d introduce my students to Contemplative Prayer, do a lectio divina exercise, and talk about the importance of pausing in our lives, no matter how stressful, to recover inner peace.  For a long time now, I’d been telling friend how anxious and stressed I was finding the young 20-somethings in my classrooms.

So here is something greatly to be thankful for.  They took over the class!  They may have more on their plates than I did when I was their age, but I discovered that day that they have an arsenal of skills — mindfulness, meditation, tools for relaxation, access and openness to therapy as soon as they feel they need it, ease of conversation about their “issues,” a willingness to share, to be vulnerable, and to let others help them.

Really.  A big wow.

Somehow, despite so much that is not going well just now in the broader Zeitgeist, the small towns and suburbs and cities these students came from — schools, parents, church groups, clubs — had made it okay to think long and hard about balance.  About wellness.  And to reach for solutions if they needed them.

I find this so hopeful, so uplifting, that I can only hope that this advance in our collective consciousness continues to grow and to reach corners of our common life it hasn’t yet penetrated.

So, a big thank you to the young people I know.  May you prosper.  May you be well.  May you be mindful of all that we hope and pray for you.

Amen.