Gratitude Monday

Thank you for this weekend Lord. I so enjoyed the ability to walk outside without an umbrella or heavy winter clothing. Thank you for the coming of summer and the glorious sunshine. Thank you for the opportunity to experience more of the wonderful cultural events Vancouver has to offer. BC Ballet was thoroughly avant garde and gave me a glimpse at a different world from my mundane pragmatic often trying day to day routine.  Thank you for another day of life. Thank you for breath and the scents of nature I experience getting out of the downtown and into the suburbs. Thank you for the pleasure of being on the water, having a fast little run about to enjoy Coal Harbour and take in the joys of one of the many great markets of Vancouver.  I so enjoyed the barbecued salmon. I loved barbecuing outside all weekend.  It was something I rarely did in the winter and certainly something I never did in winter when I worked near the arctic.  So much is taken for granted and I’d like to thank you Lord for reminding me of what miracles I experience in this sacred of worlds.
Thank you for the ability to change my perception. Thank you for teaching me the tools of rising above my circumstances and appreciating what I have rather than dwelling as so often I have on what I don’t. Help me better to celebrate the day. Help me to know less worry and fear about tomorrow. Thank you for the green grass and blue sky and the running stream near by.  I especially enjoyed the Mazda Miata and the Mazda Miata service folk.  Thank you too for the wonderful folk at Trev Deely and the dog palace and Laura’s mother’s day jeans and top.  Thank you for Honda Marine fixing my broken ignition which I now realize was because I was using the wrong key which makes no sense as it worked for a while and then hooped the system.  Thank you for these insights into my gross stupidity at times.  Help me to consider first that maybe I was the fool and not aliens or commies or fascists.  Thank you for the capacity and training to help me make personal improvement and not always expect the world around me to change to my mood.
Thank you for my teachers and thank you for the realization that life is a learning experience.  It’s a kindergarden and sometimes a university. I’m so thankful for all those who have taught me - reading, writing, arithmetic, and their advanced forms, geography, navigation; medicine, surgery, psychiatry, neurology; music, art, ; home, boat, car repairs; farming, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, weapons and weapons care; diplomacy, writing, journalism, poetry; religion and spiritual practices; physical skills and sports, computers and chess -  - all of these arrays of learning that have helped me and guided me all my life extending my experience and deepening my appreciation for the divine.  All is amazing.  To the shallow mind little is valuable but with increasing depth of learning, experience and training there is an infinitude of more to marvel at. All my learning has simply taught me the limits of my own experience and expanded my appreciation of the infinite. I can only think that ignorance is protective of those who want to remain in the safety of their limiting ideas whereas my teachers over the years especially in the formal education spaces have helped me to expand my understanding. It’s been in learning a language that I’ve most appreciated the diversity of culture.  Just recently I had and extraordinary realization of how limiting my understanding of a topic was because of the fundamental failure of ‘translation’.  Knowing the history of my patients has been like learning the history of countries and understanding their peculiar viewpoint.  I’m thankful for this.
Thank you for mothers.  Especially thank you for my mother who I miss at times like Mother’s Day. Thank you for my father who loved her so.
I’m thankful for all the parts of my body where there is no pain.  I’m thankful for the movement I have.  I’m thankful for my heart beating.
I’m thankful for my friends. I loved being in church and visiting with Kevin and Anna and their children, seeing Alice once again.  I remember when going to church was as much an effort as going to evening courses at the university but today it’s paid off so much to get over that hump and establish a positive habit in my life that gives me so much joy.  I’m so thankful for all the friends that Gilbert has. Thank you for Gilbert too who is so amusing.
Thank you for my friend Laura and our time together.
Thank you for my family and my work.  Help me to serve others better and accept my imperfections and theirs and learn to love reality more than the mental constructs that I create.  Help me to see that my joy is related to my expectations and help me to alter my expectations when they interfere with my joy.  Help me to find more balance in my life.
Thank you, Lord for this day.