What kind of dance do buns perform? Abundance.
It boggles the mind that adults can face a new day in dour fashion when all about them is recreated beauty and abundant blessing! Have you ever noticed how children face the day? Their eagerness spills out and their feet are moving before you can stuff enough fuel into them until snack time.
As we get older, to quote William Blake, "Shades of the prison house begin to grow" on our minds and hearts. The world of experience and reality may overpower us.
Some have the secret to daily communication with God, and it becomes sort of a joyful game. In Abundant Gifts Diane Eble tells about a man who was experiencing tough times. One day he comes upon a garage sale where he finds two pairs of blue jeans, one dark and one light, for two dollars each. "What a gift from God!" he thought.
Next year, again at a garage sale, he finds two pairs of blue jeans, one dark, one light. Just his size. Two dollars each. And this happens a third year. The fourth year the season of garage sales is almost over and he thinks, "Lord, have you forgotten me?"
Again he finds the same deal repeated. And believe it or not, this happens a fifth year. Now that seems to stretch credulity. But he had the kind of faith where he would joke with God and enjoy this kind of exchange.
God's gifts to us are more marvellous than two pairs of blue jeans. In "The Abundance of God as an Invitation to Generosity" Father Ron Rolheiser says,
Scientists tell us that, every second, inside the sun the equivalent of 4 million elephants are being transformed into light, an irretrievable, one-time gift. The sun is giving itself away. And that is just one of God's daily gifts!
Modern technology has almost perfected the 3-D TV you can view without special goggles. That still falls short of our eyes, God's gift of 3-D vision we take for granted every day.
Abundance seems to be God's trademark. Think of the seas teeming with fish, the songbirds of the air, the laden fruit trees, the grain-flowing fields, the superabundance of what surrounds us! The countless stars in the sky!
How can my soul be anything but overflowing with gratitude? I'm a cloud watcher. In particular I enjoy the feathery, angel hair clouds. Often I have to muse, "Thank you God." Sometimes I stop the car and go out for a better look.
J.P. de Caussade, the author of one of the greatest classics on surrendering our will to Divine Providenceonce wrote: "Those who have abandoned themselves to God always lead mysterious lives and receive from him exceptional and miraculous gifts by means of the most ordinary, natural and chance experiences."
