Seeking Water Balloons From Heaven

Everything is a gift. 

The degree to which we are awake to this truth 

is a measure of our gratefulness, 

and gratefulness is a measure of our aliveness.

David Steindl-Rast

The other morning when Dear went to the barn she found our horse Fletcher with his ass to the automatic waterer in his stall trying to do what exactly wasn’t clear: pee, poop, scratch his butt?  In any event his drinking water was foul.  When she told me this a little later I said the first thing that came to mind: At least the waterers are easy to clean.  She laughed and gave me a new nickname: Mr. Brightside.

I know absolutely nothing compared to those whose lives I’m a rookie at emulating––saints, sages, incarnations of God, all manner of holy cats.  Virtually all of existence is beyond any reasonable comprehension to me, except on the ego level, of course, which is like seeing somebody’s wardrobe rather than the beauty of their heart. 

Even so, since I was a kid, there have been those out-of-the-blue moments I find myself mesmerized by existence.  Its beauty.  Its synchrony.  Its tenderness.  The agonizing incomprehensible brutality we inflict on one another.  The equally unfathomable acts of compassion and courage.  

Then there’s the experience of unconditional love and acceptance that suddenly permeates every cell of my being for no good reason I can discern.  My cells thrum with awe.  And with that awe, gratefulness.  Like sublime dance partners; one doesn’t exist without the other.

The odd thing is it doesn’t always take an event––like holding a baby or making it home in a blizzard––to elicit these feelings.  Sometimes without warning, like a water balloon tossed from heaven unexpectedly soaking me with joy, I’m able to hear and feel for maybe only a second or two what seems to be every particle of existence in its natural state: rejoicing. 

The Mormon Tabernacle Choir sounds like the Kazoo Quartet by comparison.  

Best of all I’ve discovered what lots of us have discovered: I can cultivate such gratefulness.  I don’t need to wait for it to hit me upside the head.  I can do things to stimulate its presence.  

This, for instance, from Thich Nhat Hanh––what you might call thanksgiving on demand: breathe in love, breath out gratitude.  

And my other favorite of his––mouth yoga: Smiling.

Not to mention getting real with the idea that everything is a gift and the purpose of life is to discover how come.