KEEPIN’ IT REAL
Well, friends, how in the world did Wednesday turn into Saturday? My, oh, my! This week has been a wild one, but it’s been a great one, too.
This morning, me and my two little fur babies, Connah, a Welsh Pembroke Corgi, and Peaches, a Shih Tsu, took an extra long walk through our neighborhood and park. As my eyes are opening and the sun is rising, my dogs and I take in the good, clean city air (wink, wink). There’s something about the early morning, you know, you just feel like you’re getting the best part of the day. The air is fresh, birds are chirping sweet little melodies, runners in pace groups are trotting along with intensity and every dogs tail is wagging. I mean, it’s really something to behold (or, so I tell myself as I’m staggering out of bed at 6 AM on a Saturday morning).
At the end of our walk, we stop for the forth and final, how else can I say this, poop. Yes, here in the city, dogs are on leashes and, by golly, you have to clean up their poop. And, being the good neighbor that I am, I reach down to dispose of it in a bag. I hear one person coming up on one side with a dog, and I know it’s going to be a total barkfest. As sweet as Connah the Corgi is, he makes sure every dog in the neighborhood, from a Poodle to a Doberman, knows he’s boss. So, I stand up quickly and, the poop (I know, isn’t this the perfect post to go with your morning coffee) flies out of the bag and lands directly on top of my impeccably OPI polished big toe. On the inside, I’m screaming, “Chit, Chit, CHIT.” But, as I turn to acknowledge and address the two passersby, one across the street with a giant Black Lab and, the other, a sweet lady on a morning walk, I turn and give them each the sweetest and most glorious, “GOOD MORNING,” the world has ever heard. Meanwhile, I’m thinking “How in the heck am I going to get this chit, chit, CHIT off my big toe.”
A dear friend of mine shared a Maya Angelou quotation this week that really resonated with me. “If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning “Good Morning” for total strangers.” Humble me, Lord. Have you ever been this person? A pain in the tush to those you love, but the nicest person EVER to the rest of the world. It’s an odd and very incongruent way of being. But, I confess, I’m guilty of it sometimes.
I thought of that very quotation this morning. I wasn’t being “surly” with my family or dogs or anyone for that matter, but I was walking around with, well, you know, on my big toe and smiling like I’d just been crowned Miss America (hair unbrushed, the t-shirt that I slept in on and not a stitch of makeup). It was a really incongruent, not so pretty moment.
But, I’m, once again, reminded to “keep it real.” Because, faking it just feels so weird and wrong and, well, fake. We are all magnificently human, and we do very human things. I’m just so grateful that I serve a God that is well acquainted with it and people in my life, not just passersby, who offer me grace in my not so shining moments. Grace is a beautiful thing.
Friends, today and every single day, let’s “keep it real” and know that whatever “real” may be for us moment to moment, we serve a God who’s above it and have people in our lives that love us enough to embrace our weirdness and imperfection.
Stay Divine,
JL PARISH
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