It's Sunday again. Mmm. It feels so nice. I really love waking up on Sunday mornings knowing that there are no immediate obligations placed upon me. My existence--and probably yours, too--is just so darn go, go, go all the time that finding a moment of peace and timelessness in between is rare. When I find it, it's usually on a Sunday morning. My brain often feels as if it is stuck in a perpetual on position as it navigates the endless to-do list of my life. When it finally rebels against duty, it does so with an immediate and complete abandonment of its post. These are the nights when I mold myself to the couch and watch reruns of Law & Order because it's too hard to find the remote, which is usually a foot and a half away from me on the coffee table in plain sight. But it's so hard.
I suggest to you that this is not a balanced life. Which is why I love Sunday mornings; for a little while, I get to be King's X from it all. And I'll tell you right now, it is good. Just this moment I'm listening to the birds sing their greeting to the day while I drink tea and eat tortilla chips (all right, so going to the grocery store is on my list of things to do today. But "Thou shalt not eat crappy breakfast food" is not one of the 10 Commandments. And plus, if I just had some goopy cheese to go over them, it would be a holy breakfast. Cheese makes everything holier.).
In honor of having a day where I can find a little place in my head to rest, I have written a short list of Things I Think Are Holy:
1. Cheese. I know, I already said it, but it's worth repeating, don't you think? Again and again. Cheese. Holy cheese. You can just hear Batman saying it, can't you? "Holy Cheese, Robin, we've got to get the bomb before Joker blows up all the dairy farms in Wisconsin!"
2. Watching a 3-year-old comfort a friend when said friend falls-down-goes-boom. I love when the first signs of compassion emerge in a child.
3. Smoking a cigarette on the beach while watching the sunrise before all the other tourists get up (all right, you health nuts, I know smoking is bad for you, that's why I don't do it, but anyone who has ever smoked will tell you that this is a holy moment. It is.).
4. Sitting outside with your shoes off on the first warm day of the year. It's bonus holy if a friend joins you.
5. Laughing. Laughing is so holy that I'm pretty sure it saves the souls of the damned, if there is even such a thing as being damned. I'm hoping not, for personal reasons.
I'd love to know what you think is holy. I can tell you that it's a subject worth pondering; in fact, it will likely take your brain to a pretty contented spot. So put down the toilet brush, go outside in the sunshine, take off your shoes, and spend a little time in your happy place deciding what makes your heart feel so full that, like the Grinch, it grows three times its size.
And let me know.
4 comments:
I think if this author would write a book, it might be holy. and I am going to ponder the topic whilst I create this afternoon. I know one for sure, that very first waking moment when the body is unaware that the brain has booted up...ahh
Spending time in an art museum is holy - the way we approach such exhuberant desire to create with such hushed respect.
Doing something outside that skims the edges of danger, like climbing or skiing. Nature is so random, so unpredictable, that to participate in it to the extent that things could just go oh so wrong is not only exhilarating and humbling, but puts me in touch with something larger than myself, which to me is holy.
I love these well-put comments as well as Wicked's blog today. A nice mediation for a Sunday. Lots of holy things: For me Disney Hall in LA is a sacred space - especially the seats BEHIND the orchestra because they're cheap so we can go fairly often and watch the conductors! Thank GOD! My bathtub is also a sacred place that I would defend from any marauder who might come and try to take it away from me. The geranium I'm gonna plant today is holy. Also laughter, as so liberally supplied by one Doris on occasions too numerous to name - such as her recent split pants routine.
Thank you all for your responses! You never fail to enlighten, reward, and delight me. This was as good as any Sunday morning service I've ever attended. I'll just add one more to my own list of holy things:
You.
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