Missing Life

The air is thick and wet; but I can sense the early morning dew 
permeate the ground beneath me, moving sluggishly, labored and heavy.
It's dawn's first breaking over the greening grass and in between the trees. 
It's a new day.  I lay my head back to catch the cool fleeting breeze.
Thinking to myself, 'My breath feels as heavy as that dew.'
My mind is caught up in nonsense, in vanity, 
in life's brevity.
I close my eyes hoping to calm myself back to the morning's easing in..

I almost lose sight, in that moment, of spring's new life that surrounds me.
What a shame that would have been.
Were it not for the renewal of that cool ocean breeze upon my face,
 I'd be pulled back under from the weight of this heaviness within.
Look... I'm already captive to my day's agenda; in life's rat race.
But just in time, spring's calling me to pay attention.
'You're gonna miss it; wake up!', she whispers, 'See and listen!'

She's right, of course, how often am I not aware of the 'here and now.'
I almost missed the pair of deer as they meandered across the lawn 
in the way they always do, heading toward the pond- 
unaware of my presence; blissfully unaware of time;
free from the to-do’s; the endless lists that clutter up my mind.
 
Or the perfect red cardinals that fluttered between the two crepe myrtles.
I think to myself, 'They are not pressured by a check-list;
by demands that sap the energy from their very marrow. 
They fly effortlessly, nestled only in the constraints of that 'here and now.'

And I almost missed them. I wonder if I miss a lot of things. 
Miracles!  Life, perhaps!  This one, brief beginning of the day!
My innate constitution demands a schedule, 
coerces responsibility as a virtue. 
And responsibility is a virtue – but too often
it takes hold, in total control, and all else is forgotten.
It's a well-dressed, more mature cover for my striving;
My controlling;
My Doing; 
in some insane and addictive way.
This is how I always start my day: 
forever contriving.  But that's not thriving.

Thriving is so much more.
It's prosperity and flourish;
A blossoming and burgeoning;
A bloom and then 'Boom';
From whence one's soul does get nourished.

It's the sense of being at home;
A place that steadies and anchors; 
That reminds me of my belovedness.
That calms me in the presence of my Abba, my Father.
That speaks to me of His delight, His pleasure.

And it's there in a beautiful spring morning,
In the fleeting breeze, and the heavy dew
Reassuring me of new beginnings,
And a sense of belonging,
Not in the calculated, but in the unexpected, the unknown, the something new.