It's a beautiful day!  No one and no situation can take that away.  Open my eyes to the beauty.  Open my ears to the song of birds and the whoosh of leaves in the breeze.  Open my heart to the glory of creation. Thandiwe, my daughter, shared this magnificent photo with me this morning --Bastei, Elbe, Germany by Boris Buschardt .  It says it all.

Pause

Sometimes I forget to breathe, to pause.  I race through life without stopping long enough to take a deep breath. It happens most often these days on the computer; I approach the keyboard for "just a minute" and look up 45 minutes later, sometimes longer.  I know the wisdom of pausing, of looking up regularly, stretching, taking a break, but I push on.  I know the price --  a stiff neck and shoulders, sore arms,  the realization that I no longer have ample time for other things.  Yet...

Learning to breathe.  Learning to pause.
The day is full of opportunities for a deep breathe.
Breathe in.  Breathe out.

Joy

On each of the past five days a moment of pure joy has settled upon me.  Like a cloud, or aura, the sensation is one of being completely surrounded in a brilliance and sense of delight.  Not a surface glee, but a profound sense of rightness and peace.  A moment of knowing that, as the old hymn goes, "All is well with my soul."  -- at least for a moment! (smile).  I may go several weeks without this sense of joy in its purity, so this past week is almost joy-overload!

 First, on Wednesday in the late afternoon, the feeling overwhelmed me as Tod, my husband, and I strolled through Hilly Fields, the park near my home. The perfect moment -- safe, loved, loving, comfortable in my own skin, enveloped by God's love, grounded -- Joy.

Thursday, purchasing two kitchen pots, again with Tod -- like newly weds, looking forward to using them for years, finding just the right ones with glass lids, first pots we'd bought new since our cast iron stew pot in Zimbabwe some 18 years ago, grounded, comfortable and enveloped by love -- Joy.

Friday, skyping with my daughter a continent away, grateful, proud, not wanting anything to be different, loving and loved, enveloped indeed -- Joy.

Saturday, sitting at the end of the pier at Clacton on Sea, part of a church excursion to the seaside with 200 other people, sipping tea, watching the waves of the North Sea, sun streaming through grey clouds, present, grounded, safe, enveloped by love -- Joy.

Today, at our local pub, the Brockley Barge, enjoying a late lunch with Tod after church, enjoying the Olympics with other local folk, not wanting to be anywhere else, grateful and grounded, enveloped by love from others and for others, and touched by God -- Joy.