The roofs of nearby houses and the straight lines of the fences are frosty this morning, a welcome cold that counters December’s unseasonal warmth. They catch the early sun’s rising light, and I find myself in an inward smile.

And I see how easy it is for me to not be attentive, appreciative. How easily and often I slip into negative comparison – between a grey day and remembered morning like this, between what I fear will happen and some remembered happiness, between the time I have had and the lesser time I have left, between unreasonable utopian hopes and life simply as it is.

In this dawn glimpse of joy I see again how my familiar comparing blinds me, mutes me, freezes me, saddens me. How small, within it, my horizons become. And I remember the possibility of, step by step, giving up comparing and, instead, taking up welcoming the world.

Photo Credit: Dai Lygad via Compfight cc