大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Michael Kelly

Good morning!

The beginning of another week brings fresh promise 鈥� but also, maybe, fresh anxiety. Life can sometimes seem so frenetic, and we can feel the temptation to be in a rush around everything.

As a younger man, I was always in a hurry. Patience, I suspect, is a virtue that is cultivated by age and experience. When I was a teenager, I always wanted life to go faster and faster 鈥� I was so eager to be an adult.

As a forty-something somewhat grown-up, now I feel like I would like life to slow down. Though I love and admire the passionate and intense impatience of younger people 鈥� admirably often aimed at making the world a better place.

Maybe sometimes, as we grow we become cynical and too self-reliant.

In the Bible, Jesus often told his followers that he wished they were more like little children. At first glance, this is curious 鈥� but I think what he was talking about was the capacity to be child-like rather than childish.

To be humble, vulnerable, dependent and seeking鈥�

鈥淭his is the best day of my life,鈥� one of my nephews frequently exclaims鈥�it could be something as simple as a restaurant serving his favourite flavour of ice cream or an unexpected treat at school where the headmistress has organised a bouncy castle or a picnic to mark an important day.

Aged eight, he鈥檚 already had so many 鈥榖est days of his life鈥� that we鈥檝e all lost count 鈥� but I鈥檒l never tire ever of the wide-eyes which greet every new adventure.

So today, I pray to have an open heart and an open mind and to be ready to view the world with those same wide-eyes of a child and embrace the opportunity ahead of me.

Amen.

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