All the Blessedness of this Life

The aisles were teeming with laughing children. Then I knew today was special.

I should start at the beginning:

With last night and sips of wine, spoonfuls of hot stew and two helpings of green salad prepared by the magnificent woman who is my Mother. Her friendship and counsel filling up my heart. Starting this Day reading that post, which I sent to my mother who said, "That's when I knew, too."

And breathing the wild, windy air.

Little exchanges. One, from my beloved Aunt who reads this journal. Others from my sisters and those who would be sisters. And my father (offering to cook for me); my brother; my love.

A productive day ended and I am back out into the wild outside. Purple hills silhouetted against a blue and ivory sky. The wind is everything.

I arrive at the grocery store where shoppers are frequently on their phones and parents snap impatiently at toddlers.

There was none of this. Tonight was different.

A wide-eyed cherubim gnawed on a green onion through the wrapper and stared unblinkingly at me from her seat in the cart. Mom and dad moved slowly past the imported cheese, mom's hand on dad's back.

A tattooed father and his brood whirled by me as I hunted for Greek salad dressing, a curly-haired angel clinging to the side of the cart. The father said something about an item that they needed that would stretch their budget. The angel lisped, "But, but we don't have the money." (So precocious! So full of care!) "That's right, we don't, because you're an expensive little bugger," he joked as they moved away.

A harried-looking man, in a business suit, with black circles under his eyes, pushed the metal cart that carried a flaxen haired boy about the age of 3 who wasn't afraid to look at me. There was love in those father's tired eyes. Love that was working and fighting.

In line with the scowling clerk (I became instantly irritated--though I had been the one to dash away to look for eye contact solution--checked myself and forgave her. It was a magic day, after all.). I heard a squeal and expected a scolding. I looked up and a be-capped African man (what a nice face) was half-holding, half tickling his son.

I walked outside and the white-haired man moving towards the entrance from his place in the disabled parking smiled at me and said hello. I drove through the cool, mad air, carrying my abundance home in the twilight of this Perfect Day. This Instrument.

I am happier for having been reminded by Malcolm, Lewis' correspondent, that

"one had to start by summoning up what we believe about the goodness and greatness of God, by thinking about creation and redemption and 'all the blessedness of this life.' You turned to the brook and once more splashed your burning face and hands in the little waterfall and said, 'Why not begin with this?'"

My cup runneth over.