One Thousand Gifts

He walked through the front door, trotted right past me, proceeded steadily toward dining room, this grandson of mine. "Eeeh," he said, and raised palm upward. Brother followed behind, stopped and tilted blonde head toward point of interest. "Yaya," he asserted. Quickly lifted palm high in the air. Tiny twin dimpled hands saluting ceiling fan, or maybe a praise. We turned on the switch for the fan, lights brightened the room. Their gazes, immersed in scientific wonder, of light and movement, simplicity of it all. This is routine. This is what they know. We taught them how to operate the remote for one of our ceiling fans. Plus, I tutored them on the necessary high-five. I thought about this early habit of theirs this past week. About the familiar, how it feels cozy, comfortable, safe even. But what happens when our spiritual GPS gives us an incorrect route? Or we can't hear steady voice announcing "re-calculating, re-calculating." We're left lost, broken, confused.When habits begin to hurt, and our souls enlarge but head reclines on the sofa watching re-runs of Seinfeld. A few weeks ago I jotted down #1000 in my journal: tried a class at the gym, no good, left after 10 minutes, sneaking out door. Ran into a gymmie friend in locker room--her husband died the day before, tears spilled, words tumbled out, she talked, cried, talked. I listened. We hugged. Earth did not shake after ink met paper. Clouds did not break open and spill fish. My On-Point pen looked the same. Seconds passed. Tick. Tick. Tick. A supernatural epiphany took hold of pen: one thousandth grace was life, doing life, hard life, the beautiful gift of life. And saying thank you for the wonder of it all. During these past months, through pain, uncertainty, and yes joys of life, I believe God orchestrated it all, knowing assuredly that eyes would open to see. Pry open from dubious squint. My spiritual GPS wasn't broken, it needed new batteries. A new source of power. Helen Keller wrote: "God is the light in my darkness, the voice in my silence." When twin boys raise palms in the grocery store, in our home, toward nothing in particular, I like to believe that their spiritual eyes are soaking up everything, like those elfin toy sponges that morph into cool animals.  I ran across a quote today by an unknown author: "Worship is the highway of reverence and washes the dust of earth from our eyes." I like that. One thousand hallelujahs and more to come, a crescendo of  offering thanks, little boys raising palms. And a celestial GPS, unswerving in its direction, "Yaya, Eeeh!" This is the way. Trust me.