Happy Monday!

I wanted to come to you through writing/pictures today because this is the mediation practice I’d like to invite us all to explore this week.  (Also, I have laryngitis so a video of me signing to you might not be super effective if you don’t know sign language!) Depending on when you started staying at home (if you’re able to), we’re coming up on 1 month of quarantine.  I don’t know about you, but as the days blur into one another, there are some days that I’m finding it difficult to be grateful.  I try turning off the news and focusing on the tasks in front of me, but honestly, I miss going to church!  I miss seeing you all walking past the welcome table on Sundays and sharing stories of how our week went.  I miss popping my head into Brian’s office and asking him for things ☺️  And I miss shaking hands with new folks at our church who have come to check us out because they know that they are in need of community and our values and principles feel like a good fit to them.  But the good news is, we can still do a lot of these things, just in modified form.  (For example, I now pop into Brian’s email asking him for things!)

To fight these quarantine blues this week, I’d like us to try starting a gratitude practice.  I was going to say journal, but, if you’re like me, you have a stack of journals that have the first five pages filled out and then nothing following up.  So I’d like to invite you to consider what type of gratitude practice might work for you.  This might be journaling, but it could also be any number of practices including a silent meditation, focusing on the object or concept of our gratitude.  I’ve decided that I’m going to take one picture every day of something that I’m grateful for.  Something that illustrates quarantine life but is a joy that brings a smile to my face.  I’ll be posting these gratitude pictures on our Discord channel under the #meditation-mondays feed.  I hope you’ll join me and we can create a First UU Gratitude Photo Album.

 

Above, you’ll see one of my favorite wedding pictures.  I love that our photographer captured Jay being Jay.  He’s always snapping pictures and, even when we were paying someone to do that for us he had to get his phone out and snap a ton of pictures also.  Jay and I are celebrating our 5 year anniversary this summer.  We certainly didn’t plan on celebrating it this way, so now we have to get creative.  But today, I’m grateful to be married to this amazing goober.  Jay is a resident chaplain at OSU, so he’s on the front lines helping people and their families who are sick and unable to have visitors.  That means we’ve had to alter our lives significantly, but through it all he’s been a rockstar.  And for him and the life we’ve built together, I’m grateful.

Whatever you decide that you want to spend time on this week, I hope it helps us all remember to take a little time to remember all of the wonderful things in our lives to be grateful for.  And however much longer we’re communicating with each other virtually, I just want you all to know that I am grateful every day for all of you.

Sending you virtual hugs until we can be together again,

Kelli

Don’t forget to share your gratitude photos on Discord!