Under The Tree of Awe
I want gas service restored, just like every other resident in the Merrimack Valley affected by the recent explosions and fires to which I have alluded in a couple of previous posts. Going to the Y to shower and shave and the prospect of no heat when it starts to get cold and the much more limited possibilities for meal preparation (microwave, electric hot plates) will get old in a hurry. Yet I have found myself actually thankful for a look at what we take for granted on a day by day basis. We take them for granted justifiably, I might add, in our modern world. The built world we have created is astonishing.
Of course we take things for granted, like how the chair we’re about to sit in will not just collapse or your car won’t blow up when you turn the key. It is good, though, to have those times when you stop and just give thanks as a right response to living in these times and being human and to not take it for granted and to hold it close and dear, even if just for a moment.
I think there are certainly days when one takes for granted hot tea and showers and having keys to one’s own digs and a working vehicle and generally good health and plenty of food and people you love and ambient sunlight and the uplift and excitement of commerce all around and laughter and new ideas and the change of seasons and having coffee by a rainstreaked window in a cafe or the freedom to vote or observing the subtle turn of a beautiful ankle or surviving a potentially lethal accident or any of a million possible experiences, in a world so full of a number of things, to borrow from Robert Louis Stevenson.
Right now I am just really grateful for this mug of hot Lapsang that I can hold goblet style and warm both of my hands on a fall morning. It’s a simple pleasure, like so many of the best ones are, and I’m happy to think of it, in this moment, while the steam is fogging my glasses and I have my eyes closed and am savoring the aroma. That seems like a grace, an unmerited favor, to have it come up unbidden like this. To be aware and then to give it voice. Two byproducts of a gratitude practice, whether the object is hot tea on a cold morning or being aware, in the moment, when you’re in the shower and grateful for what the simple plumbing and the turn of a knob can bring and how not everyone has what you have. Even if they did, it’s still gasp-worthy, like the ability to breathe, which everyone also has.
Jung noted that “The serious problems in life, however, are never fully solved. If ever they should appear to be so, it is a sure sign that something has been lost. The meaning and purpose of a problem seem to lie not in its solution but in our working at it incessantly. This alone preserves us from stultification and petrifaction. The meaning lies in our working on it, not in its solution.”
To his point, this Inquiry Into A Gratitude-Inspired Life is all about meaning and how we alone, of all sentient beings, have the power to make it. That power is our glory and our downfall, our yes and our no, our advance and retreat. I invite you to look a little deeper today, down below any inconvenience and hassles and fears of scarcity, down to the simplest stuff. It’s OK that you take it for granted, I absolve you. Look a little deeper and take Rumi with you. He said “You must have shadow and light source both. Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.”
