Firmly rooted, but not so firmly

Today I feel grateful.

I fell asleep last night laughing with my husband who held me close and told me how proud he was of me. The last thing I remember before waking up this morning is the sound of my giggle stifled by burying my head on his chest and the sound of him laughing back at me.

I woke up to the sound of Michael lifting a happy Ada out of her crib. He brought her to me and I spent a few minutes singing with her before we both got up to make breakfast.

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I'm grateful for our stories. I'm grateful for our histories. I'm grateful for the dialogue between past and present. I'm grateful for my heritage, for the knowledge that I can work hard because I come from hardworking people. History is one of the ways we define ourselves, it's our claim to existence. I find comfort in knowing that the state of existence is really a state of impermanence. I'm grateful to know how false the phrase, "People can't change" is and how true the phrase, "We are people at change" is. 

I'm grateful that even though history can't be stuffed into compartments, or soundbites, (or websites), that we record our stories—our histories—anyway. I'm grateful for my believing heart. I'm grateful for my sometimes-doubting mind and for my spirit that reconciles the difference.

I feel grateful for my religion that is rooted in tradition, history and the past, but not so firmly that it loses the spirit which created tradition, history and the past. I'm grateful for creation; for family; for faith. I'm grateful that God speaks.