Gratitude

Last week I was driving around looking for things to photograph and I decided to pull up into the tabernacle. Although I've taken a picture of it from the road, I'd never actually been inside it, and there was no time like the present. Of course, I was a Nervous Nellie the whole time because I was worried someone would see me wandering around the property and they'd claim I was trespassing. As you can see from this picture, I am a good, safe distance away from it. At least in this photograph. As far as you know.

We continue the week with another Chesapeake Bay Mother contribution, a slightly more serious one.

On Gratitude
By Chesapeake Bay Mother

When I first meet the day, it summons me onto our deck, where quiet shadows are visible floating beside glassy reflections of sunrise on Queens Creek just a few feet away, and my subjects arrive one by one.

A bluebird flashes up from the grass as a gull calls while gliding just above his watery mirror image. At my feet a golden toad* hops into the flower bed, avoiding me and searching for his breakfast. There, morning glories trumpet their blues in unison, putting my hard-fighting zinnias to shame. In the wildflower twine, a majestic black and yellow spider writes his testament of soft-spun delicacy. As if informed I am there, a winged squadron of wild geese prepare to land in their usual spot, the honey locust, where their water is provided. How lucky am I to receive such a welcome to the new day!

What a wondrous place, full of life and beauty, is this world—even those places no more exotic and remote than our own backyards. Contemplation of it all leads to the numbing realization that I am undeserving of such grand amusement. I didn’t earn it; though in a sense, I did inherit it just as we all did.

My only resort is to marvel at it and offer thanks.

I do.

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Chesapeake Bay Woman's Comment:
*A golden toad? Golden? A golden toad? OK. That's all I have to contribute.

Except this: I've never, ever seen a golden toad. I wonder what's in the drinking water over there next door. I ought to be worried since my well is very close to theirs.