Blessings

It's a beautiful autumn Saturday morning here in Southeast Michigan. I hope you are all doing well and taking a break from the rigors of weekday life. This weekend summer officially turns to fall and I hope you can all take the time, as I do, to count your blessings. If you're like me, you may find yourself falling into the pit of negativity. Just watching the evening news is enough to turn the strongest optimist into a sniveling pessimist. So it is always good to take a few minutes to take stock in how are lives are truly blessed.

Some of us may be going through some hard times--financially, physically, mentally, relationally-- but it is never a bad idea to focus on the positives in our life, no matter how hard at certain times that is to do. Some of us have lost loved ones this year. As the holidays roll around we will think of them more, but let us not become bitter for they would not want that for us. God doesn't shoot from the hip. He has a plan.

For those of you who need it, here is a quick tutorial on how to and how not to count your blessings:

How to: Although my job can be stressful at times, I am truly thankful I have one.

How not to: Although my job can be stressful at times, I am thankful for it, with the exception of that son-of-a-bitch Tom in HR with his constant lurid stories about the size of his dog's bowel movements and his boring antecdotes on how to properly mow your grass...

You get the picture.

I bring all this up because it dawned on me the other night, while watching the nightly news, that we have become accustomed to overaggression. We are people walking around with elephant guns ready to shoot at the first ant that crosses their tentacles at us. We constantly act like wild animals backed into a corner, baring our fangs and ready to pounce. In other words, we constantly have the negative at the forefront of our minds.

I see it at work. I see it on television. I see it when I drive. I see it when two people with opposing political viewpoints can't be in the same room with each other. Why is everyone so sensitive and aggressive these days? Because we don't look at the good anymore. We are being trained, by the constant force that rules this planet, to focus on the negative. It's all a part of a dastardly plan to divide and conquer, to subdue into submission.

We live in the greatest country on Earth. It is too bad that the tax payers had to bail out Fannie and Freddie and AIG, but guess how many countries around the world would have been able to do the same and avert major economic chaos? None.

As I finish here I will walk over to my bookshelf and pick out The Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. I have not read it yet, but I need to. Because all this mumbo jumbo about counting your blessings is a flash in the pan for me as well. It rises up, I am thankful for a few moments, and then it's right back to gritting my teeth and shaking my fist at a world I don't understand.

But one of the blessings I count is hope itself. Hope that one day I can see the positive, the beautiful, the magical, in everything around me, all the time. That would be heaven.

Now, feel free to comment with one or more of your blessings today.

DC