I made my way home looking at the dark clouds in the rearview and headed up to my sanctuary for the evening. I set my purse down, grabbed a book and a cup of chai, and of course my favorite quilt. As I started to read, a chapter in, I looked up and out the window after hearing a deep rumble from the sky and watched as it began to pour. There's something about an afternoon downpour that stops me in my tracks. Perhaps it is the fact that I can see the drops and hear them as they hit the ground. I don't know about you, but evening rainstorm send me into a quick coma like sleep.
With my book in my lap, I began to look around my apartment. It was clean for the first time in what seemed like weeks, a candle was lit, and I was sitting still. I couldn't remember the last time that had happened. Sometime between the months of March through early May, my calendar and life seemingly, turned into a timetable with slots instead of a fresh pallete full of moments. Bullet points that left no room for interjections.
I realized I hadn't read a book in two months, and I hadn't baked in maybe three. I couldn't put a pinpoint on the last time I had spent an evening with nothing planned. If you know me very well, I thrive on those moments. You like to spend your evening out with 22 of your closest friends? I like those nights, but if I am honest, I probably would prefer to sit on my couch with a book and a 1990's rom-com rolling in the background on my tiny television.
While I am only a chapter or two into my recent read, I could be completely missing the point, but here is what I have taken from it so far. The author talks in the intro about how we are sitting around waiting for our "moment". You know, that moment in the movies where they get the job, catch the bad guy, win the award, or say their vows. We wait. We watch. We press onward. Somewhere in that waiting game though, we forget to experience. We are waiting for a celebration when that moment arrives. The author suggest that perhaps the celebration is in the current moment, not in THE moment we think we are waiting for. The celebration is now. The celebration is life. Are we missing it?
Once the rain stopped, I went out to my porch. The trees were green, the ground was wet, and the unmistakable scent of an Spring rainstorm was in the air. The clouds were still there, but pockets of blue and sunshine peaked through the clouds. The birds were singing, and the crickets were chirping. It was one of those moments. A moment worth celebrating. Sometimes I forget I don't have to be sitting in the middle of the mountains to notice the beauty in Creation. It's right here in Oklahoma. It's right over the railing of my apartment balcony. A beautiful picture is surrounding us. It's moments like those, where I sit and count the drips of water from the porch railing on my toes, that I wonder how many more of these moments I miss, moments of pure, uninterrupted peace and bliss.
The title of the book I am reading is Cold Tangerines. The author says she wants to live a life where she enjoys cold tangerines among the other little things in life.
Have you ever seen one of those over-sized colorful plates in a gift store that says "Celebrate Everything"? You know, those ones that look like you could make it at "paint & party" but way better than anything you (or at least someone with my limited art skills) could make yourself? I have seen them more than a dozen times, picked them up, and immediately set them down after being appalled at the astronomical price tag on a 8 inch diameter piece of plaster. As I continue to read this book, the phrase painted on the plate keeps crossing my mind. Perhaps those words should be painted across my heart and become the shades through which I see my world.
I want to live a life worth celebrating. I don't want to wait around for hypothetical celebrations culture tells us we need to be fulfilled. I want to take deep breaths. I want to travel far away and see things I have never seen. I want to notice the shape of the leaves on the trees outside my window, and I want to sit in a hammock every chance I get.
The truth is, life isn't always relaxing, and I don't always have an open schedule. I have to remind myself that those little moments, moments full of awe and wonder, are just as present in the busy times as in relaxing ones. God is present at all times and so is his faithfulness. With an ever present God in the midst of a chaotic world, we are sure to find beauty, wonder, and moments worth celebrating. We just have to be willing to open our eyes and train ourselves to look for and engage in them.
The gift of the moment is enough reason in itself to celebrate. The more we look deep into those moments we are given, the more we will notice what the Lord has had right in front of us all along. Look around. Live. Breath it in. How can we not celebrate?
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