You're walking in the woods or along a sandy beach, say, or having a good, long visit with friends who really know you. You laugh at things you only know out of shared experience. Goodness rises up and gratitude fills your heart. This is "good" you say. Or "amazing." "Brilliant." In moments like these we see and feel and touch and hear the goodness found in our particular space and place.
Today, these good places, good people, and good things can be captured and named. A word rises beckoning gratitude, sadness, thankfulness. A note from a dear friend bings its arrival on my phone, words of affirmation and blessing flow. I'm being thought of and prayed for. A smile answers from my mouth and eyes. I offer thanks to God for this day, for this friend and the love between us. Today, Lord, let me not miss all the good and beautiful around me. Let me not miss seeing the hard, too, the reality of what is. The blessings I have that you provide out of your love and care, as well as the things that are difficult and hard and that I don't understand. Let me name this day what I see and feel and know, and offer my thanks to you, one by one.