GOODNESS (excerpt from my journal).

Remember when Raggedy Ann got lost in the creek and her cotton got soaked with muddy creek water, her hair fell out and her candy heart melted? Then that woman ripped her open, pulled out all of her insides, washed her little cloth body and her clothes and hung her out in the sun to dry? Then remember how she stuffed her full of new, clean, fluffy cotton, gave her a new candy heart and new yarn hair and sewed her all back up?

Same old Raggedy Ann, but fresh, clean, bright and whole again.

That was my beach day. I was at the beach at 8am. and the hills were blue, with golden orange color backlighting them. No one was on my beach, so I sang and laughed and flung out my arms. Then I went and curled up in a huge twisted mass of driftwood. I thought about how temporary we are and how God doesn't, in His infiniteness, need to be faithful to creatures who are only around for 70 years. But He does choose, because He IS faithful. It's His/Her Person. And I can fling my consciousness out to that far stretch of beautiful blue and tangle up my Spirit with Hers. with that expansive Presence.

I thought about Thankfulness, and how, when you're filled with it, there is no room left for small things. Thankfulness is so true, and so holy, and so filling. When I, in my joy and in my struggles, take time to paint a thank-you on my palm, I am acknowledging Her place, Her Power and my own lack of control. Her blessing is so simple and beautiful. She has done all things well.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

God is so far beyond my imperfect perceptions. Mother, Father, Creator, Sustainer. Goodness.