peas, God?

“Peas,Nana,” said Aidan as he held his cup up to be filled. He said “Tank yah,” as he reached for the freshly filled cup. He is two years old and his vocabulary is beginning with the most important words in any language, please and thank you. As he ran around at his birthday party on Saturday, he was practicing gratitude when he opened presents and asked for cake. Sunday morning at church I watched as other adults came to give him hugs and birthday congratulations (it was in the order of worship announcements). His church grandma brought him a toy bag and she got a hug with her “Tank yah”. He is learning how to pray and how to live as he learns the importance of these words.
This Monday morning I am praying please... please let a season of resurrection spring come to my soul... please stand close by those I love who are mourning the absence in body of dearly beloveds... please help the soldiers who have come home wounded in body and spirit from a war that seems to have no end... please let hope bloom in our hearts for the earth you have given us as a home... please renew in us a right spirit of love that we might be a truthful reflection of your love here on earth.
And, I am praying thank you... thank you for two year olds who take joyful delight in all your creation and in their life... thank you for the ties that bind us to each other... thank you for the turning of the seasons that brings the comfort of new life after death... thank you for the gift of my life... and thank you for the laughter and love that surround Aidan in his church home... thank you for poets and poetry whose word songs speak to my soul.

i thank you God for this most amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.

i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;
this is the birthday of love and wings:
and of the gay great happening illimitably earth.

how should tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing
any-lifted from the no of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened.
e.e. cummings