Spend time with young people

My youngest granddaughter, who will be 12 in September, flew from Portland to Chicago as an unaccompanied minor more than a week ago to visit me for two weeks. We have been having so much fun together, and we still have the rest of this week to enjoy each other's company.

This time with Payton allows me to access the young girl in me again. It's a reminder that we still have inside us every age and stage we've ever been. The young girl is never totally gone, even when we're grandmas! Unfortunately, sometimes the stresses and strains of life cause us to forget the playfulness and wonder that we so easily accessed when we were far younger. Hanging out with young adults and young children helps us get back in touch with those qualities, however. It reminds us of the hope and optimism we felt before becoming so jaded.

If you have young children in your life, try to spend time with them whenever you can. It's good for us to embrace our playful side. It's healthy to see the world with awe, wonder and amazement. It's just plain fun to feel the joy and exuberance of even the most ordinary things in our daily life.

You're never too old to embrace your Inner Child!

Miracles, gratitude and awe

So much seems crazy all around us these days—in our country and in our world. And so, as always, it's great to focus on gratitude and the wonders around us. I don't mean that we ignore and stop addressing what needs our attention. Rather, I invite you (and myself) to remember each day to look for the positives and be grateful.

That's why Monday morning when I picked up my copy of A Daybook of Gratitude: How to Live Each Day with a Thankful Heart and found this poem by Vickie M. Worsham, I read it several times. I want to share part of it with you now. It's called "Believe in Miracles."

"Every morning, wake with the awe of just being alive.
Each day, discover the magnificent, awesome beauty in the world.
Explore and embrace life in yourself and in everyone you see each day.
Reach within to find your own specialness.
Amaze yourself, and rouse those around you to the potential of each new day."

There's more, but you get the idea. Awe. Embrace life. Potential. Your own specialness. Amaze yourself. Isn't this just rich with wonderful images and thoughts?

Let this be your focus today. Perhaps even make it your focus for the week. Or more!

Here's to wonder and awe

Awe. Mystery. Wonder. These are words and experiences that don't often seem to come up in daily conversation. And yet, they have the ability to lift us out of mundane lives and into something extraordinary.

Here's what Albert Einstein said: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead—his eyes are closed. The insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms—this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."

Interesting, no? In an age when we're so caught up in just plodding along, one small step at a time, perhaps caught up in our devices and technology—and in an age where arguments continually arise over who's doing religion correctly—Einstein's words take us in a different direction. They really need no further explanation, so I shall give none. But I think they bear repeating. So I plan to read and reread them and then reflect on what that means in my life. I invite you to do the same. And then notice what's around you that wraps you in awe and wonder.