Quilt by the late Betsy Caprio!

The season of celebrations has concluded for this academic year and for my family. Between March and June we celebrated 9 special occasions in my family circle, each one unique, worthy of attention and joy, each one remembered and honored in a style befitting the honoree. Then in the USA we celebrated the Fourth of July in honor of the founding our country. My awareness this year has been sharpened to notice all the sensory ways in which we celebrate by encountering the book Life in Five Senses by Gretchen Rubin, a gift from a sensory conscious friend. Now these unseasonably hot days of summer, I am bring invited to another kind of celebration–the memorial celebrations of so many loved ones, almost one a week all summer long. Once again I am acutely attentive to me senses, which are reminders, evokers and blessings for this who have enriched my life

As we celebrate each person in a particular time and place, there is so much to see and reminder: colors of every hue, shapes of every size and kind, motions and gestures of delight, pride, of grief and nostalgia! I can see, sometimes only in my minds eye, the peonies beloved by one, the bright and bold hues always worn by another, the shape of the silhouette the one being celebrated with gesture and expressions, the aroma and taste of that chocolate dessert, the gentle warmth of that hug after a long absence.

I am learning that these are holy prompts, reminders of how the Mystery we call God fills the sensory world with Presence. With my sight I see perfectly shaped eyes and mouth of a grandchild made in the image of God. With my ears I hear the intricate harmonies of vocal ensembles who use the genius of Bach to sing “To God be the glory!” With my mouth I taste, not only fresh grown peaches and cherries, but at gatherings of remembrance, I taste the love put into the baked, tossed and simmered culinary offerings that fill the tables of connecting, reminding me that so often bread and wine shared is the moment in which we see the Holy. After the neighborhood gardeners have swept down the street each week, the air is redolent with the scent of cut leaves and grass; I am nudged to let my prayers be that kind of incense as they rise to the Creator. And I know without question that the touch of my beloved ones–husband, children, friends, even the brief shaking of a hand of someone new, all are sacramental, visible expressions of invisible Grace!

So many other distractions can clutter my senses, yet I am choosing to Celebrate that Presence of the Holy One, who to my body’s senses reminds me that Holy Love never lets me go! That’s a great reason to cheer and laugh!Thanks be to God!