moments of waking up

i have been tryin' hard to keep in mind how lucky i am.
it's really a cool thing to do as it just keeps so much in perspective.

the last thing i felt like doing today was mowing my back yard.
and yet.........i thought about that.
how i HAVE a back yard.
and how beautiful it is.
okay.
i mowed completely differently than i would have.
i mowed with appreciation.
not like it was a chore.

i keep thinking about people who are living where fear is such a huge issue.
where there is no safety.
where there are no yards.

i thought about that as we drove to lowes this weekend.
i looked at the beautiful spring popped out all over
and thought of how lucky i was to live where i do.

and when i found myself standing in the garden section of the store,
i wanted every plant in there.
i love plants.
and i just wanted to buy all of them.

so i tried something.

i told myself 'instead of wanting - why don't you really really look.
do nothing more than really really look. get nothing. see everything.'

ohmygosh.
the flowers were even more incredible than they were moments before that thought.
i looked at them and thought how unreal they looked. the colors and the shapes and
the way they hung from the stems....the leaves, the stems, the bursts of petals -
the glory of the flowers just completely overtook me.

and i looked up.
at the people milling all around.
picking out what plants they wanted for their porches or their yards.
passing these over here, barely looking at those, never giving any indication
that they realized how incredibly blessed we all were to be standing there in
the clean safe stocked to the brim mountain of flowers that were there for us to purchase.

'please, god, don't let me take this stuff for granted any more,' i thought.
and that's when i heard it -
the sound all around me -
the sound of god shouting thru the flowers!
shouting because it was too magnificent to do anything else.
shouting in a sound that is always around me -
but rarely do i hear.

sometimes i have these brief awake moments,
and i see how asleep i can be so much of the time.
my flower moment this weekend really reminded me -

i am lucky beyond imagination to be where i am.
and i so want to respect that and really really hold it with gratitude -
and awareness.
i know i'll fall asleep again,
walk thru the flowers again without hearing the shout,
but i'm gonna keep trying to wake up.
because it's the least someone can do who is as lucky as i am.
it's the very least.