Choosing to remain present with your friends, to take the dog out, to listen patiently to your coworker even while your mind is screaming and you want to hide or pound your head until it stops--such things are small offerings, small sacrifices, little acts of defiance against your suffering, that may mean the world to them. And anyway, those small offerings are all that God asks of you.~Alan Noble (From On Getting Out Of Bed, The Burden And Gift Of Living)

As 2023 ended, I didn't have much motivation to look back and evaluate the year. I looked in the rearview mirror and felt wistful, in a way, that I'd lived another year. These years vaporize before me now that I'm older. Very old, some would say. Closer to seventy than sixty. Yet I don't feel much different than I did in my thirties. Sometimes better, because in my thirties there was so much to do--kids and career and making enough money. Marriage and church. So much on my mind.

During the holidays, I listened to a song by Joni Mitchell, I Wish I Had A River I Could Skate Away On. It's a melancholy song. The singer wants to get away from the pain of her life. Oh, I wish I had a river I could skate away on. I wish I had a river so long. I would teach my feet to fly. 

As I look forward in 2024, I think about skating away on a river that takes me where I need to go, where I desire to go. Anticipating the good. Rejoicing that even when I experience the pain of life, there are always small offerings I can make. And I can receive the small offerings that others make to me.

Maybe our "kryptonite" is thinking that small offerings  are of little consequence. Perhaps if each day we practice small offerings to not only others, but also to ourselves, we feel the relief of skating away on that river.  Happier. Liberated. Less pain. More vibrant living. Teaching our feet to fly.

Happy New Year. Grace to it!