Gratitude and Odes

At work, on the street corner, on the television we find slander, complaining, greed. As an act of rebellion, or a cultivation of gratitude, I plan on contructing my next couple of blogging posts as Odes, singing praises. Here is my quickwrite ode to gratitude:

Gratitude, you golden thing. The sky is blue and I am breathing. In the garden this morning while my mother watered, I pruned the choyote. Some of its leaves were browning, drying and falling to the ground. What it needed, my mother commented, was a trellis, something to grow on. A lattice, a structure that its curly tendrils of new life could cling to and climb, higher and stronger. In my life as I grow, as a writer, as a worshipper of God, as daughter, sister and friend, I too need a trellis, something that helps support the space for new growth and further research. I think Gratitude can be that foundational thing. A pause of appreciation that I awoke this morning. A pause of appreciation for my clever body and this clever world I live in spinning on its axis and today is summer. An appreciation for my friends, an appreciation for the process of repentance, an appreciation for growth itself. An appreciation for past, future and present. All this appreciation, these pauses and exhales, allow me forward. Allow me here. Allow to be more worshipful, helpful and loving. Allows room for work, temperance, discipline. And to take note where I do not see the birds singing, the hardness of heart, that stumbling block to love. EARTHQUAKE!!!!