Just

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Thursday, December 23, 2021, 4:30 a.m.

JUST

            ‘Just’ is a treasure of a word. It’s like a little light that can show me how to live each moment. To be happy, I just have to enjoy precisely what’s happening. Right here and now, I just have to relish the way my old fingers are deftly flowing across the computer’s keyboard, and the way the furnace in the cellar is smoothly humming and helping warm air rise and spread through the house. I simply have to be here, right now, with whatever is happening – all day long. I don’t have to achieve great things today; I merely have to meticulously study and appreciate each present moment – the way water slowly simmers in the pan for my cereal, how Delycia’s flowers on the windowsills shine in understated ways, the ever-changing light on our car’s dashboard as we drive to her medical appointment this morning. I must do nothing today but fully become familiar with whatever is presently unfolding. I only have to be totally here, right now, at every mysterious, miraculous moment. 

            Nothing special – just a simple and beautiful way to spend a day.

"I JUST CAN'T SEEM TO PRAY."
(said by a friend)

Try this.
Just watch the sunshine
walk across a river at dawn,
and a prayer 
might open its wings 
inside you. 
Or study a breeze as it fondles 
a tree's new leaves with love,
and suddenly every place 
can seem like a church.
Or - so simple -
just put a pencil honestly to paper,
and good words 
could slowly light 
like candles.