Watching and Studying

WATCHING MY STEP

     “Watch your step” would be a useful slogan for me. I especially like the word “watch” because it suggests the kind of completely committed awareness I want to foster in myself – an awareness that sometimes, sadly, seems absent in me for hours and days at a time. I want to be constantly on the alert, attentive as much as possible to the nuances of this oddly beguiling life I’m living. I want to watch what’s happening as carefully as a sharp-eyed sailor watches from the deck. This is a demanding mission for me, since a youthful heedlessness still seems more prevalent in me than awareness. I still sometimes see in myself the rash madness of my teenage years. I come panting into a new day, dash through it, and then rush into sleep at the end, hoping that a few hours rest will help me race even faster tomorrow. It’s an especially swift and hassled world we live in these days, hardly the kind of setting to support “watching your step”, but I do want to give it a good try. Instead of simply glancing at the gifts May is giving us along the roads these days, I want to occasionally stop and study them. Instead of quick looks, I want long looks. Instead of briskly passing by the songs of birds on a walk, I want to truly listen, to sometimes let my feet come to a silent stop among their beautiful songs. Instead of passing this lovely section of Delycia’s garden with hardly a glance,

I want to stop and actually study it for a few moments, as I did this morning, noticing the tiny raindrops along the leaves, and the very small white flowers staying almost shyly in the background of the beautiful white tulip.

+ + + + +

GRACE

Grace gives him gifts

every moment,

whether it’s the wind

working among springtime trees,

or a blue sky

that seems to be singing,

or just the feel of his fingers

on the keys of his Mac.

Grace is what

the world gives,

if he just waits

and watches for it.

Even white sunshine

on a white house,

seen in passing,

makes gracefulness

overflow in his already

spilling-over life.