And What Else is Here?

Tiger the cat needs to know if you fancy apples or grapes, and I want to know how your heart is holding up this week. 

The world can be tough, and it feels like we are on the precipice of big changes with the election, the wars, and the climate. Even with all of that, there is still so much here to be grateful for. 

The "and" practice can really help! Yes, there is hard stuff (how is your health?). Let's not pretend otherwise. And what else is here? Apples and grapes, trees and rivers, children and dogs. 

This morning, I thought of a poem from Wendell Berry:

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.