On a Treasure Hunt

This next group from my gratefulness list has a theme of exploration - on a treasure hunt. Looking for and finding adventure in the simple, everyday things.

• feeling effective, valuable at CMG meetings, able to encourage others
• appointments scheduled for vet and groomers (after procrastinating for months)
• photos from far away of a new granddaughter
• pumpkins from A's pumpkin patch placed on the island - center stage - a successful experiment
• amazed - a nutrition plan that results in weight loss - a sustainable way to eat. Oh, and healthy, too
• volunteer garden work at the zoo - listen to monkeys, geese, exotic cows, goats while pulling weeds
• blue skies again after weeks of smoky haze from summer fires
• Theresa writing 'gentle' on music - erasing exclamation point and drawing fluffy clouds instead - saying exclamation doesn't match 'gentle' (at flute lesson)
• eating out and bringing home half
• window open to cool morning air, welcoming fresh air inside
• twenty pounds down! weight = a good thing to lose
• Book Girl by Sarah Clarkson - a treasure key to open more treasures
• woman on the train softly singing a hymn (Come Thou Fount)
• H's help to organize, clean basement - amazing accomplishment in less time than we expected (and fun doing it together)
• fresh breezes, air movement even when it is hot
• travel safety - praying protection for RARJ amidst unrest and turmoil in the city
• relationship challenges
• Duolingo Spanish practice - fun and good for my brain
• new shelf in the bathroom, painted and installed - clutter off the counter
• pick dried beans - amazing, exciting to unwrap the pods and find spotted beans
• ORDINARY MIRACLES - the vision to see the wonder of ordinary miracles; family safe on a flight, babies growing and developing, a good book with time to read it, a smile, seeds becoming plants, a fresh breeze
• "Always be on the lookout for the presence of wonder." -E.B. White

Wonder Quotes

Most of us have probably wasted five or ten minutes on Pinterest, right?

Ahem.

Well, if you have another five or ten minutes to spend browsing around, try Brainy Quotes. A bit more intellectual or philosophical perhaps, than Pinterest, but still a fun way to sink a few minutes. A way to get inside the heads of some interesting people.

On a recent stroll, I found these two quotes on my one-word for the year, Wonder:

"I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder."

                                                                                                        -G.K. Chesterton

"Wonder is the basis of worship."

                                                                                                        -Thomas Carlyle

Touched by Scenes of Wonder

Have you read the Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S.Lewis? Highly recommended.

This morning, watching the sunrise, I thought of the lines from the first book, The Magician's Nephew. Polly and Digory (old Professor Kirk in the other stories) watch as the great lion, Aslan, sings the sky and the stars into being.

"The eastern sky changed from white to pink and pink to gold. The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose...You could imagine that it laughed for joy as it came up."

I am grateful for these moments of wonder, the glimpse of the spectacular.

A little later, here, the ordinary gray skies glowed, illuminated from the sun, hidden behind.

 In the story, there are three others watching with Polly and Digory. One becomes a king, one becomes the influence of evil in the new world, and one just goes back to his selfish, narrow-minded ways. Polly and Digory go on to other adventures, but mostly, on to many ordinary gray days in their ordinary homes and lives.

The ordinary days, touched by scenes of wonder, don't seem so ordinary after all, do they?

Full of [ ]

Don't worry, this is G rated.

I wonder what my one-word should be for 2015?

What should 2015 be full of?

What one word best defines my goals-plans-hopes-dreams-attitudes toward this year?

I thought, perhaps, Edit. An on-going theme and process, part of learning to Travel Lighter through the maze of my days.

Or, perhaps, Listen. To listen - and hear, really hear - those around me, to listen quietly for the Lord's voice, to say to life, "I am listening."

But, those words didn't seem quite right.

Two quotes I recently read stand out in my mind:

"Pay Attention.
Be Astonished.
Tell About It."

                                                   -Mary Oliver

"Step One:
Wonder at Something.
Step Two:
Invite Others to Wonder With You."

                                                      -Austin Kleon, Steal Like an Artist 

Wonder at something.
The glitter snow falling during Christmas, sun reflected gold in the snowflakes.
Flavors and smells of an Italian meal, baking in the oven.
Puppy squeaking her tennis ball in her mouth, delighted with the noise.
Flour, yeast, water, oil, kneaded and rising under the towel.
Ocean waves, storm clouds breaking at sunset.

Invite others to wonder with you.

 What causes you to wonder?

I looked wonder up in the 1828 Webster Dictionary (a very cool fascimile edition that uses KJV Bible verses and classics to illustrate definitions). It used words like: surprise, astonishment, amazement, miracle, admiration, wondrous. All of these, expressed, point at the wonder of the daily ordinary. Because that is where I live. To pay attention to the difference between expectation and surprised by gifts of wonder.

I finished re-reading Ann Voskamp's one thousand gifts. At the end of writing about her journey, Ann says, "No, I'll never stop the counting, never cease transcribing the ballad of the world, the rhyme of His heart...His presence filling the laundry room, the kitchen, the hospital, the graveyard, the highways and byways and workways and all the blazing starways, His presence filling me. This is what it means to be fully alive."

To be surprised by wonder. Isn't that an oxymoron? Yet, we are surprised. Awed.

Another word in the definition: marvel.
The Marvel comics are revitalized by the movie industry in the Avenger series. Heroes doing wonderful things, doing wonders, saving people, the world, the universe.

What wonder-full things do I do? Fix dinner. Clean the bathrooms. Clean up doggie poo. Plant seeds. Knead the dough. Be patient when it would be "easier" to snap back a comment (sometimes, not always). Understand, learn.

What wonder-full things do you do?

Can we really learn to see the daily ordinary as wonder-full?

Full of wonder?

Would you like to be full of wonder with me this year?