I once heard someone ask an old lobsterman, “Have you lived here in Maine all your life?” The lobsterman replied, with a twinkle in his eye, “Not yet.” Me, either. I haven’t lived here on God’s good earth all my life—not yet—and I want to live each brand, new day to the brim. I want to open my hands wide and open my eyes wide to receive each simple pleasure.
This morning, I receive the simple pleasure of simply sitting in an Adirondack chair. For a good while, I watch a branch of yellow leaves against the blue of the sky. I am too small to take in even that much beauty, but I am grateful for this glimpse of the bliss of receiving ‘now’ as it is, without pining for what is not.
“The bliss of the animals lies in this, that, on their lower level, they shadow the bliss of those . . . who do not ‘look before and after, and pine for what is not’ but live in the holy carelessness of the eternal now.” George Macdonald
“For His tender mercies . . . are new every morning.” Lamentations 3:22-23