Thanksgiving

The memorial service for a friend of ours was this morning. I'm sad that she passed away but glad that because she believed in Jesus Christ as her Savior, she is with him in heaven right now.

As I think about how quickly life passes, I'm especially grateful this Thankgiving. Here are a few things I'm grateful for in no particular order:

* my husband and my daughter
* my family and friends
* a body that moves and breathes and performs countless tasks every day that I take for granted
* a mind that can think, learn and reason
* provision for basic needs and many, many extras besides
* holiday get-togethers with dear ones
* mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, and our family's favorite baked beans
* creation (you knew that would be on this list, didn't you?)
* medicine for laryngitis and sinus infections
* laughter, and lots of it
* beauty, of course
* the arts, especially visual and theater
* tears of joy, tears of sorrow, tears of compassion
* language, words, and the Word
* grace
* grace
* grace

Thank you for reading. Enjoy your Thanksgiving.

Shakespeare

On Saturday, we went to see A Midsummer Night's Dream with some friends. What a delight! It's been years since I studied Shakespeare, but it doesn't matter. The actors make the lines understandable by tone of voice and body language so even if you don't catch specifics, you understand the gist of what they're saying. The costumes and props at Georgia Shakespeare Company are always clever and the clown characters are hilarious. We laughed and laughed through the final scenes and have been repeating favorite lines to each other ever since.

At dinner afterward, my friend talked about the beauty of language, the gorgeous flow of Shakespeare's poetry over the audience. It made me think about what I've been reading in Luci Shaw's book about language and poetry and about the meditation on scripture that I've been doing. I want to fill the well, a term used by creativity book author Vinita Hampton Wright, with images from scripture so that when I write, the beauty of language, which God Himself created, flows over my audience as well.

Do you have favorite passages from a book, a poem, or scripture that flow over you? Please share it in a comment.