When the Whole Earth Comes Crashing In, It’s Still a Good Day and Other Hard Eucharistos

by | Apr 17, 2018 | Reflections, The Bright Side

If you have spent any length of time following me on social media, you’ll see I try very hard not to post negative things. Rarely do you hear me complain because, all in all, life is good and as this article states, it’s bad for your health.

Several years ago, my father chose to start a new habit. It was in the midst of Obama’s re-election and as with anything political, things on social media got nasty. My dad found that engaging in these negative interactions was affecting him. It was poisoning his soul, he said. From that point on, he shared positive things that he noticed in every day occurrences. He called these “Hard eucharistos.  Eucharistos is being mindful and thankful. But notice he didn’t just call them eucharistos; he called them hard eucharistos. That means, sometimes we have to search for the positive in light of the negative. (Dad’s blog)

For Dad, it was a challenge at first, but several years later, he’s still posting about the normal things for which to be thankful.

This leads me to my own story.

April has been an odd month. The weather in WNY has been weird, and even as I sit here on April 17th, it’s snowing pretty hard. That’s unusual and for those of us who live through the deep freeze of north eastern United States weather, the melting snow and shining sun are welcomed sights. Nonetheless, it’s beautiful, creating a pretty white blanket across my lawn. (See what I did there?– Hard eucharistos)

I started my new job. This is great. I’m loving being a part of the publishing community as the Director of Author Services at Brimstone Fiction. And even though I’m still getting my feet under me, and even though there are many things I don’t know how to do, I have confidence I’ll be able to figure it out.

But April brought with it some challenges as well.

  1. We need a new furnace. Actually, the guys are here putting it in as I type these words. And we have a little electric stove that keeps us toasty. AND someday soon the snow will stop. (See, it’s not so bad– Hard eucharistos.)
  2. A tree fell on our barn. Correction, the neighbor’s tree cracked in half and flew into our barn. Yeah. It used to be straight.

One might look at those pictures and think, yeah, that pretty much sucks, and in a way it does, but here’s what is good out of this literal mess:

  1. No one was hurt.
  2. We will get a new space that will probably fit our needs better.
  3. I only lost 4 Christmas ornaments.
  4. Most of the stuff we wanted was in the bottom of the barn and untouched.
  5. We were able to salvage the few things in the top that were meaningful.
  6. No animals were hurt.
  7. It’ll help us clean out the junk that we’ve been meaning to do forever.
  8. No one got hurt.
  9. No one got hurt.
  10. No one got hurt.

Is it a pain in the neck? Yes, but there are so many people who have it worse than me. There are people without food or shelter or  clean water. There are people who can’t afford a place to call home. Is it a hard eucharistos? Not really. In the long run, it’s not important.

So, now I turn it over to you. Tell me one thing you are thankful for today even if it’s hard to be thankful in the moment.