1. The grandmother of one of my gymnastics girls telling me "You have the patience of Job!" It was such a great thing to say and so kind of her to express that I felt very accomplished for the rest of the day.
2. I was in desperate search for baklava, but so far from Albany Park. I walked up a few blocks and found a fancy restaurant which I knew served my very favorite dessert but felt intimidated about asking for it to go. No matter, I charged in anyway and asked the host if I could buy a few pieces. He seemed to understand my plight and replied, "NOOOO problem!"
Not only did he arrange them in a lovely box for me, but he gave me a dollar off, AND a coupon. He explained, "Because you're so kind!" but I think he was just being Lebanese about everything. My favorite thing about Arabs at large is how generous they are with food. This is a huge part of Middle Eastern culture--the sharing of food with friends and strangers--and I see it in every Middle Eastern restaurant in the city. Even the fancy ones.
3. Warm clothes on a cold night
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3 Signs of Grace
Inspired by Three Beautiful Things, I am setting out to record three signs of grace I see most every day
My More Wordy Blog
For, like a grain of fire
Smouldering in the heart of every living essence
God plants His undivided power --
Buries His thought too vast for worlds
In seed and root and blade and flower,
Until, in the amazing light of April,
Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,
Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret
Too terrible to bear.
Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees
Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament
And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,
While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,
Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.
(Thomas Merton)
Smouldering in the heart of every living essence
God plants His undivided power --
Buries His thought too vast for worlds
In seed and root and blade and flower,
Until, in the amazing light of April,
Surcharging the religious silence of the spring,
Creation finds the pressure of His everlasting secret
Too terrible to bear.
Then every way we look, lo! rocks and trees
Pastures and hills and streams and birds and firmament
And our own souls within us flash, and shower us with light,
While the wild countryside, unknown, unvisited of men,
Bears sheaves of clean, transforming fire.
(Thomas Merton)
For here we are so blind and foolish that we never seek God until he, of his goodness, shows himself to us. It is when we do see something of him by his grace that we are stirred by that same grace to seek him, and with earnest longing to see still more of his blessedness. So I saw him and sought him; I had him and wanted him. It seems to me that this is and should be an experience common to us all. (Julian of Norwich)
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