The way to wellness is found in welcome, not in taking, seizing, grabbing, but in humbly, graciously receiving and freely sharing every gift. By rousing early, we point the way to unwrapping the daily gift with radical receptivity. It begins, as the sky warms from ocher to orange with a wake-up glint of awareness. Wonder ignites a glowing sense of awe when silent luminescence over-spills the lip of the horizon. Thoughts widen to welcome those ahead of us, for whom the day has already ripened. Echoed images from the evening news, re-illumined by dawn, lead to wondering about the challenges, struggles, joys that lie before us. Countless beings share this “now” along with us, fellow passengers on our pilgrim planet. It has taken nearly fourteen billion years living, growing, hurting, healing, dying, to get us to this particular moment. Our lapses and losses, wrong-turns and wanderings, distress and despair are also part of this story unfolding. Without anguished failure, corruption, injustice, we would not be who and where we are. For us, this is a dawning threshold of the new day. For others, it is a twilight of endings, long darkness beckoning. For some the storm has passed, while others only sense the distant rumblings. For those ready to receive, “now” is a fulcrum, between all that was and might be, that presents pivotal questions: How can we stare into the face of infinity and not be enlightened? How do we connect this moment to the next? How will we greet this day and handle its possibilities and perils with care? Every dawn brings tending and attending; unexpected realities to embrace; tears and laughter to share; conflicts to resolve; worries to hold; bodies, minds, and souls to nourish. But first, the deep breath before we plunge into presence. On the brink of each bright moment, let that initial exhalation be thankfulness. Then, in darkness and in delight, we might proclaim with hearts unhinged: Thanks be to Thee, Source of all we can see!
—from the book Wandering and Welcome: Meditations for Finding Peace
by Joseph Grant
