Good Morning God, Thank you

I woke early this morning.  I had vague memories of positive dreams, visiting with people who accepted me as I am. I reflected last night on being the best version of myself.  It’s an inside job.  I wear costumes and masks on the outside. These days it’s nail polish and hair colouring.  Yet inside I’m perpetually like my finger print.  Unique. I carry the experiences but at the core I’m the child my mother and father loved. I was born into a loving large family with grandparents uncles and aunts, some from the centre of middle class urban reality and others from the northern forests and fields of Canada.  

At the time I really didn’t appreciate fully how blessed I was.  I mostly was having an idyllic life and felt I suffered because my mother was constantly saying, ‘clean up your room….don’t slouch,….chew your food…eat your vegetables….don’’t doodle and a myriad of civilizing statements that did me well in future years. My father mostly was saying ‘listen to your mother ‘ and ‘stop bothering your brother’.  

Meanwhile I was given a microscope as a boy and a bicycle and I studied the stars with my father and brother using his big binoculars.  We lived in a safe suburban Canadian suburb, the Anglican Church manse and minister next door, the judge a few doors down and my friends father the chemist across the lane.  We had two pilots living a couple of houses away, one a former fighter pilot and the other an active international commercial pilot. The two ladies with the little dog weren’t sisters and I only learned much later that they were lesbians.  People pretty much kept to themselves but were respectful, friendly and discrete.  Mostly the mothers stayed home and really were home makers, baking bread, doing laundry , tidying, sewing, preparing three meals a day and of course gossiping.  Some like my mom who wrote for the local papers had little ‘pin money’ jobs.  The neighbour took in foster children and another did some day care. The men went away in their often brand new cars and returned in the afternoon.

It was an unhurried time. I loved exploring with my friends and later bicycling everywhere.  We saw a bobcat by the river once.  On a tree. The dog was barking at it and of course keeping us safe.  We also found a true detective magazine with black and white pictures of private eyes and girls in shorts skirts and garters and hose.  Years from them my friend would share his older brothers playboy stash with us but that was after we’d become good in baseball and hockey.  We joined the YMCA and swam in indoor and outdoor pools depending on the season.

Dad would take the whole family in a car ride across the country sometimes visiting family east or north or just exploring to the west.  We rode on trains and flew in planes. It was really by most standards ahead of its times. Dad was an engineer and interested in tech so we had movie cameras and radios.  Mom won a lottery and we had the first colour tv in the block.  Neighbours came to see.  It wasn’t a big house. We never had more that a few guests at any time.  We had all we could want and more.

Today I ‘m thankful for my life. I was asked to share at a meeting this week and expressed gratitude for of all things peace of mind. I remember one year for weeks and months my thoughts seemed more like hampster in a cage, the monkey mind.  Now instead of the raging seas and fast streams of yesterday my mind is more like a meandering great river slowly heading to the ocean, the mountains and water falls of past stretches behind me.  Perhaps I ‘m just in a valley but for today I’m thankful for the relief and hopefully won’t mess it up. I’ve had many worry free times in my life when I’ve messed with the peace and simplicity.  I like drifting downstream today rather than struggling up stream or back and forth across the currents.  The waters seems a lot deeper too.  Less shallow .  Less rocks.

I’ve my dog with me. A little black and white cockapoo with the most expressive tail and a tendency to grumble. My sister in law calls her two female cockapoo, ‘the grumpy old ladies’.

Thank you God for this day. Thank you for the shower and hormones and lotions and indoor plumbing. Thank you for electricity and the furnace. It’s cold and raining outside.  I let Madigan out for a pee and he was back in a shot glad to have this cozy den to share with me.

Thank you for my work and the people I have the privilege to serve.  Thank you for dreams and plans and the sense of forward motion, faith and hope. Thank you Jesus. Thank you Creator.