Every Place

I am a planner and love dreaming about the future and then setting goals to make it happen.  However, one of my biggest personal and spiritual commitments is to be present in the now.  I once explained it to a friend this way.  My mom was a stay at home mom and when you ask her about being a mother, she used to say every phase was her favorite because there was something fun and exciting and new about each phase her children would go through. 

This is how I have approached my life.  I don't want to spend my days romanticizing or criticizing my past or spending my time thinking the best is yet to come, but live in a memory of the past or an expectation of the future that never existed or arrives.  I want to look back on my life and be able to say "each part of my life was the very best part of my life" but I want to be wise enough to know it and appreciate it at the time. 

For me this is deeply rooted in my faith life and a sense that gratefulness is at the heart of our relationship with ourselves, others and the world.  I want to practice being grateful, to see what is great in each moment, transition and challenge in life. 

I am not saying that challenges have not been a part of my life or will not, but I just don't want to be ungrateful about the other great things that are going on at any given point in my life, for the new opportunities and for the way that each moment in my life whether good or bad has had a way of carrying me to somewhere new and suprising and always wonderful. 

And to that end I want to make sure one of my monthly features on the blog in 2011 includes a "very best list", highlighting the very best of what is going on this year and what I have to be grateful for because this year is going to be full of challenges and adventure and I want to stay present to all the good that is in store.