What a gift to throw open the windows to the blessed coolness of a new day. We get to be here. I get to savor the first cup of brew as I fill the hummingbird feeders (one buzzed my head) What a blessing. What a tremendous gift. Each day we have reminders of just how precarious our position is. Recently, we were having lunch with a friend who had several text messages waiting as she touched back down in California from Spain. Message after message, “Call me,” they all said. It sounded urgent and it was.  

He said he was dying. He had been tired and his wife convinced him to go to the Doctor. Turns out he had esophageal cancer and stomach cancer and didn’t know it. Three weeks prior he had been hiking in the Sierras. Hospice was called and he died a few days later. 

I get to be here. This morning every breath feels like a benediction, a prayer of thanks, because it is. The Bible says that life is but a vapor……it certainly feels more like this now that I’m facing 67. I like how the King James Version puts it:  

Whereas Ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” James 4:14 

It is a privilege to be here with my feet up in this comfortable chair, turning the pages of a book that I am finding I don’t care for but keep reading anyway. It is marvelous to feel good and hear the cats racing and thumping around the house. At 2 years old they are still playing, breaking things and causing all kinds of mischief around the house. They chew everything and are more like having little house goats. 

I am feeding our old neighbor cat and 4 new chickens. They aren’t laying yet but starting to look like real chickens. They squawked greetings as they waited for their mealworm snack. Nearby, two geese parents watched me as their fuzzy little ones poked at the grass for bugs. 

I think of the song by Fernando Ortega, “This Good Day” 

“You’re the one who goes before me, in my heart I know that this good day, it is a gift from You. The world is turning in its place because you made it to, I lift my voice to sing a song of praise, on this good day…..” 

Yes, it certainly is and He certainly is……