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Today's
quotation:
For
many years now I have listened to the stories of people
with cancer and other life-threatening illnesses as their
counselor. From them I have learned how to enjoy the
minute particulars of life once again, the grace of a hot
cup of coffee, the presence of a friend, the blessing of
having a new cake of soap or an hour without pain.
Such humble experience is the stuff that many of the very
best stories are made of. If we think we have no
stories it is because we have not paid enough attention to
our lives. Most of us live lives that are far richer
and more meaningful than we appreciate.
Rachel
Naomi Remen
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Today's
Meditation:
Rachel
Naomi Remen is one of my favorite writers. Her
stories about her life and experiences are full of love
and compassion, and I've learned a lot from her awareness
and attentiveness. In her books she gives me a sense
of peace, of purpose, of hope, and of appreciation,
qualities that make my life much more pleasant and much
richer. I recommend to everyone that they find a
writer or two who make them feel this way, and read all
they can by those writers.
The
passage above speaks of two different concepts,
though, one for today and one for tomorrow. First,
it tells us of the importance of the little things, the
aspects of life that we tend to overlook and/or ignore in
our day-to-day lives. We have so much to be thankful
for, yet we lose the gratitude when we're not conscious of
those things. Have you taken a hot bubble bath
lately? Personally, I'm thankful for the water
heater that gives me hot water at the turn of a knob,
the people who developed the systems of pipes and faucets
that make indoor plumbing so easy, the people who have
spent time developing bubble bath with nice smells and
textures, and finally simply for the time I have that
allows me to indulge in a luxury such as that. How
many people in the world never have experienced such a
thing? More than we'd like to count, that's for
sure.
I
don't want to have to be terminally ill before I recognize
and appreciate all that I have to be thankful for.
The hot buttered toast on a cold afternoon, the stereo
that plays my favorite music for me, the sunshine in the
early morning, the laughter of children, the smiles that
people share with me--life is full of "minute
particulars," and we have to choose: do we
recognize them and give thanks for them, or do we continue
to allow them to have no positive effects on our lives at
all?
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| For further
thought:
A greater poverty than
that caused by lack of money
is the poverty of
unawareness. Men and women go
about the world unaware of
the beauty, the goodness,
and the glories in it. Their
souls are poor. It is better to
have a poor pocketbook than to suffer from a poor soul.
Jerry
Fleishman
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