My dog snoozes a lot, but sometimes she surprises me. It happened again this morning. She and I were outside for a while, and she just meandered and sniffed. Then, all of a sudden, out of the blue, she started tearing around in wide circles, running like the wind, around and around, circle after circle. After a few minutes, she stopped running and went back to meandering and sniffing, as if joy hadn’t happened. It had happened, though, and it made me thirsty for more. I am not free enough yet to tear around the yard in circles, but I just might sing at the top of my lungs when nobody is around or flop into an Adirondack in the sun for a five-minute vacation even though so many things in this beloved world are still bent and broken.
“So we may know the hope / that is not just / for someday / but for this day—here, now, / in this moment . . . / hope that knows / how to sing / when there seems / little cause, / not someday / but this day, / every day, / again and / again and /again.” Jan Richardson
“He gives me . . . the oil of joy for mourning. . . .” Isaiah 61:3