Let’s not look back on all of the Glorious moments recognizing them only in past pictures or past regrets of not having loved enough. Let’s see the miracle that is life right now.

Cast before you is the possibility for infinite Creation; notice as your body naturally breathes in this present moment. Feel how your heart is pumping and circulating the blood right through your body without any effort from you whatsoever. Let’s celebrate the perfectly simplistic fascinating magic that life is.

I ask to open my eyes to the beauty all around me. I ask to open my heart so that love may enter and circulate throughout my body and back into the world.

I ask to open my hands to receive and give with wisdom in the ways that I have been gifted to do so. I ask to open my mind in order for creativity to flow and judgments to be released so that I can imagine into existence the reality I would most like to experience.

In this very moment, I acknowledge the unseen forces and connections between our physical selves and spiritual realms where life is created.  There are absolute paradoxes within which we are living here. I think that how we survive and possibly even transform the paradox is to embrace every piece of evidence and every possibility which suggests peace, harmony, joy, forgiveness, and gratitude that we can muster.

I for one each day ask for the real strength it takes and the Deep vulnerability that must be present to embrace exactly what’s in front of me with as much compassion and wisdom as possible. I do not deny the hardships and I will not be defined by them alone. Have you ever noticed when you run across an old photograph or you recapture a memory with an old friend how precious even the struggles feel?

Let’s not enjoy life only through photographs.

And the story we relish when we experience it through memory;

Let’s Celebrate life as it arises.  Let’s give ourselves over to the present moment.  Imagine if we worshiped this moment as we worship the past and an imagined desired future.

– Sherry McLaughlin. Hashtag Lewisburg City Paper #130. April 2021.