Today’s meditation was written by Cathy Self, Senior Vice-President for the Baptist Healing Trust.
Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground. – Rumi
Despite many who would assert we are driven by instincts for survival of the fittest, there seems to be a much deeper drive within each of us to love and be loved. For some this is best expressed through a deeper longing to contribute and to serve. Those who visit these pages live out of that longing and selflessly give through the care of their hands and hearts every day. Most days, there is great satisfaction and even deep gratitude for the gifts we are able to express through care giving. Beyond that quiet acceptance of gifts received, it is important to also celebrate those gifts, even if in solitude, noticing and experiencing the goodness of life and work.
Celebration is not something that many of us have built into our normal routines. We tend to celebrate the extra-ordinary: birthdays and anniversaries, projects completed, new births, and sometimes even retirement day. Love invites us to celebrate the ordinary and the every day, seeing with new eyes and open hearts the gifts that come to us and from us in every encounter.
The discipline of celebration matters just as much as the disciplines of listening, paying attention, and self-care matter to our ability to give healing and love. And, as the poet Rumi reminds us, "there are a hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground." This day we offer some ways of celebration you might consider as a practice of appreciation and gratitude in your own life, and hope you will add to the possibilitites with your own contributions and reflections:
1. Statements of affirmation, expressed to colleagues. Recall details of what they have done or said that made a difference for you. Let them know what they do that you value and why what they do deserves your appreciation.
2. Sit quietly and reflect on a time when you experienced great appreciation and gratitude for some circumstance in your life, for a family member, or friend.
3. Acknowledge yourself today. Reflect on the growth and change in your own life.
4. Experience awareness of all that is good in your life through music, art, or poetry that gives expression to your feelings. Consider making a special time and place in your life to enjoy those expressions on a more regular basis.
5. Consider a time for journaling, with a focus on your gifts – those things you just can’t help but share with others! Enjoy a few moments of celebrating you.
6. Others?
We seek to honor and celebrate you in our work through the Trust, and hope that the pages of this journal have become a place where YOU feel celebrated. It is with great gratitude and humbleness that we send you our love.
p.s. the roses are for you!
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment