Everyday Grace

The day began with overcast skies but the clouds soon gave way to blue skies, thin white clouds, and sunshine. Any time the temperature gets above freezing this time of year I feel like celebrating. Add in the sunshine and I am feeling total gratitude for this day (and for all of the above freezing days last week).

My day has been filled with mundane tasks like buying groceries and filling the bird feeders. It feels like

Everyday Grace!

This morning I drove by Medicine Lake and saw that there are still some Trumpeter Swans and many ducks in the open water of the lake. But there are far fewer than there were last week at this time. I was wondering this morning whether the swans would still be there with the snowstorm predicted to arrive in the wee hours of tomorrow morning. If the snow arrives as expected, I plan to head down to the lake tomorrow to see if I can photograph any remaining swans in the falling snow.

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here.

    — Wendell Berry

I bought a small Christmas cactus plant and a bunch of calla lilies at Bachman’s this morning. Last week I pulled out my amaryllis bulbs from the cool basement storeroom where I placed them in mid-August, and planted them again. They are already sending up their first green leaves. I will be enjoying weeks of camera play with these beauties in late December and January as they begin to bloom. But today I enjoyed photographing Christmas cactus flowers and calla lilies.

Surely there is a knowing behind it all. There is a teacher, an expresser, a creator, an artist perhaps, a poet certainly that has designed and presented all of the clues that we need to navigate life with some degree of grace, and perhaps with a greater degree of happiness than we now have.”
― Jeffrey R. Anderson, The Nature of Things – Navigating Everyday Life with Grace

The simple grace and beauty of cactus flowers and calla lilies filled my senses and sparked joy in my heart. What sparks joy in your heart and makes you feel everyday grace?

May you walk in beauty.