The Basic Goods of Life…

When I lived in Seattle, my backyard ended with a hedge of blackberry bushes. I didn’t think much about it until my sister and her family arrived for a visit one August.

Turns out my nephew absolutely, positively loved blackberries and was so excited to find this treasure in my yard. While we were out without her one afternoon, Lori surprised him with a blackberry cobbler she made from those berries. To say Tim was thrilled was an understatement! Ever since then, this simple summer fruit makes me smile and I enjoy every berry I taste.

In his invitation above, Abraham Maslow dares us to even experience “ecstasy” from simple pleasures or “the basic goods of life.” I think of those blackberries and my young nephew’s reaction to them and know ecstasy is truly possible from things we take for granted. I dare you (and myself) to seek out this week the simple summer pleasures of life and embrace them as if they were gifts from God given solely for your delight.

May you notice the basic goods of summer all around you. And may you experience them with child-like wonder and awe.

Born Anew

“Each day the world is born anew for him who takes it rightly.”

–James Russell Lowell

Discernment

The trouble with the mind
is that it sees like a bird
but walks like a man.

And things at the surface
move fast, needing to be
gathered. While things
at center move slow,
needing to be
perceived.

What I mean is
if you want to see the
many birds, you can
gather them in a cage
and wonder why
they won’t fly.

Or you can go to
the wetlands, birding
in silence before
the sun comes up.

It’s the same
with the things
we love or think.

We can frame them
in pretty cages or follow
them into the wild meadow
till they stun us with the
spread of their magnificent
wings.

– Mark Nepo