order – EVERYDAY MIRACLES: An Occasional Journal of a Life Lived in Wonder

Deliver

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Today will be a day of deliveries – special deliveries, I should say. All day long, splendid and surprising gifts will be delivered to the doorstep of my life – special thoughts, free-flowing feelings, words and sentences to say, events that shine like sunlight. I can have the fun, to day, of waiting at the front door of life to see what uncommon packages will be delivered there. The universe constantly sends out gifts of distinction, and I, like all of us the world around, will be the lucky recipient. Unfortunately, I often overlook these gifts and leave them lying on the doorstep – gifts of unsurpassed thoughts, first class people, second-to-none situations.

All day today, life will be delivering limitless favors. It doesn’t always ring the doorbell, so I had best stay attentive moment by moment. Whole shiploads of exceptional words, ideas, encounters, circumstances, and persons are already on the way!

SUMMER ORDERLINESS

He marvels at the orderliness
of things. These days
the birds start singing
at exactly five-seventeen,
and the newspaper man
makes his stop at the house
next door at six-o-six.
Stranger still, his breath
enters and leaves with precision,
his quiet heart
carries on its duties
in a dependable way,
and the stars stay
where they're supposed to stay.
It's astonishing
to consider this
as he eats his perfect
piece of toast
and dawn delivers
another ideal day 
at his doorstep.

***my beloved best friend, at the end of our Christmas dinner***

“THE DAY IS DRAWING TO A CLOSE”, oil, by Irina Avlasenko

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Wednesday, October 13, 2021

ORDER

Today, as usual, the present moment will give the orders. All I have to do is listen carefully and follow its instructions. I won’t have to busy my little ‘self’ to figure things out and give commands and directions, because the present moment will quietly do that for me. It will tell me how to sit at my desk, how to listen to the sounds of the furnace, how to tap the computer keys accurately, how to be present in a perfect kind of way. There will be order everywhere – in the position of the small hairs on my hands, in the way my coffee waits in the cup beside me, in the way sticky notes are situated on my desk. Tidiness will show me how to to live and love this day. There will be apple-pie order from breakfast to bedtime, if I can stay observant and see it. The world actually works in orderliness and symmetry, even though it sometimes seems in disarray. I just hope I can see through the mist of my own thoughts and recognize the discipline and peacefulness of the present moment, for it’s always there.

ORDERLINESS

He marvels 
at the orderliness of things. 
These days
the birds start singing
at exactly five-seventeen,
and the newspaper man
makes his stop at the house next door 
at six-o-six.
Stranger still, his breath
enters and leaves with precision,
his quiet heart
carries on its duties
in a dependable way,
and the stars stay
where they're supposed to stay.
It's astonishing
to consider this
as he eats his perfect
piece of toast
and dawn delivers
another ideal day 
at his doorstep.

WORDS LIKE LIGHT

Monday, June 21, 2021, 4:35 a.m.

ALIGNED

This morning, as I listen to the songs of birds outside, it seems clear that in the coming hours, everything will be perfectly aligned, not because I will be able to put things in order, but because the endless universe itself is comprehensively meticulous. All is always well-kept, from tiniest atoms to towering mountains, and this day will be no exception. Though I am sure I will not always be aware of it, each present moment will be carefully and flawlessly structured, and all the passing hours will move in a beautifully methodical way. If there seems to be disorder and confusion, it will be disorder that contains concealed evenness, and confusion that will somehow and at sometime shine a new light on the orderliness of all things. Delycia and I will be doing another kayak float today on the Wood River today, and if my back begins to feel sore, I can be assured that right where the soreness is is also the vast and peaceable tidiness of the universe. Although it surely won’t always seem that way, everything, as always, will be in apple-pie order today. There will be sleekness and neatness everywhere – even in the apparent mishmash of riverside trees, even in the seemingly messy swirlings of the river, even in the occasionally uncomfortable movement of my elderly arms as I paddle along. Behind any seeming disruption will be a vast and endless alignment, the shining association of all things.

I just hope I can see it today.

ABOUT TRUTH
June 21, 2021

The effect of truth 
is quietness and assurance forever. 
You can see it 
spreading its goodness 
across the river, 
and down on the face of the sea. 
You can hear its quietness 
taking care of the world, 
its assurance speaking softly. 
Follow the truth 
across the undisturbed hills, 
or simply see it sitting next to you at work,
or shimmering in your soup at noon. 
Sometimes it whispers,
and sometimes 
it draws closer 
as your next thought.