Ten years ago I was overwhelmed with the sense of wonder at holding my hours-old grandchild, Kaley Marie Jackson, looking at her angelic face, her perfect little hands, and her eyes as they opened to light and noticed things around her for the first time.
She exhibits the same sense of wonder and joy as she explores things now. She is interested in just everything, soaks up knowledge, delights in God’s world, and shows apppreciation and excitement when she learns something new. As a former teacher, I delighted in this awareness in my students. It was more than my salary in meaning to me.
Too many, I fear, take life for granted. Is it the distraction of busyness? Is it that we prioritize things into the important, the immediate, the appearances that we fail to allow excitement or discovery? Even as Kaley opened her presents last night, I saw the adults’ concerns about picking up the wrappings, getting on to the next present, and rushing the recipient into the next gift when she merely wanted to examine with intense interest the one she just unwrapped. This is not meant to be critical. It is merely a habit we older people allow to happen.
In a meeting, we fail to listen to opinions because we’re eager to get to the next item on the agenda. We get absorbed in a conversation about what we want to say instead of honestly interpreting what the other person expresses. We can’t wait for the next iteration of technology to come out, while we oh so recently delighted in the phone we have when it was new. We forget how thrilled we were when we got the job we wanted when we’re in the trenches trying to accomplish what were previously exciting goals. Now they are merely tasks to be completed minus the original excitement in accomplishment.
I’ve been reading Ecclesiastes lately. It discusses the process of looking at life. Is it merely passage of time and generations? Is it life without meaning? Is all mere vanity or unimportant? I’d like to think not. I would like to live life victoriously, enjoying each day, enjoying each day’s sunrise, noticing that no two are ever alike. I’d like to taste the difference between salty bacon and runny yellow egg on my breakfast plate. I’d like to hear the sweet peeps of newly hatched cardinals and the midnight croak of the frog in my lily pond. I even acknowledge the pain of eighty-year old joints and delight in the wrinkles on my lover’s face, knowing that our aging bodies have served us well and that we appreciate their service.
Today, may we recognize that to stop and smell the daisies is not a mere saying. It is lifeblood. We must learn to treasure even the mundane, because it is sure evidence that God is in His heaven, and at least some things in His control, not man’s, are perfect and worth celebrating.
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