Dearest Readers,<\/p>\n
O What a World and All Its Glories Reign.<\/p>\n
As the plane descended over Montreal at 7 a.m. this morning and I looked over the city I once knew so well the landmarks that stood out most prominently were the houses of worship. I could see churches, synagogues and mosques. Every few blocks a building erected to the Magnificence of Being. Corruption may exist in religion but at its heart religion really is (or ought to be) about celebrating the Wonder of It All.<\/p>\n
How apropos, then, that I happen to be reading A Prayer for Owen Meany<\/em>, by John Irving, which is all about faith and the lack thereof. As I reached the section of the book dedicated to Owen Meany\u2019s funeral and read paragraph after paragraph of praise for the Divine I looked out and saw below the efforts of our desire to connect with the Divine above. Or within. Heck, everywhere!<\/p>\n O What a World and All Its Glories Reign.<\/p>\n Arriving at the apartment I used to call home, my glowing, pregnant sister fresh from the shower greeted me with her big, round belly growing a new person and again I was struck by the Power of Life and all its Mysteries.<\/p>\n After walking around the old neighbourhood and buying fresh Montreal bagels I saw a bird splashing in a puddle, dunking its head, shaking off the excess water and repeating the exercise again and again, insuring that its feathers were suitably clean for the day ahead.<\/p>\n O What a World and All Its Glories Reign.<\/p>\n Driving to Ottawa from Montreal where the land between is lush and green and farmer’s fields stretch beyond the highway I saw white, yellow and purple splashes of wildflowers lining the soft shoulders of the road; red-winged blackbirds perched on long grasses waving in the wind; and white puffs of cloud dotting the perfect blue sky.<\/p>\n O What a World and All Its Glories Reign.<\/p>\n This is only Day One of the 8-week journey. Such riches! Such wealth, my friends!<\/p>\n Inspiring Message of the Day: <\/strong><\/em>Am I able to stop and notice the extraordinariness of this Life today? Can I see beyond the banality of everyday living to connect to the Experience of Being? I will do my best with this practice for there truly are wonders to behold all around me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dearest Readers, O What a World and All Its Glories Reign. As the plane descended over Montreal at 7 a.m. this morning and I looked over the city I once knew so well the landmarks that stood out most prominently were the houses of worship. I could see churches, synagogues and mosques. Every few blocks…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[856,345,816,344,346,347,817,343],"class_list":["post-558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-being","tag-celebrate-life","tag-inspiration","tag-john-irving","tag-montreal-bagels","tag-montreal-to-ottawa","tag-motivation","tag-owen-meany"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":559,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/558\/revisions\/559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.celiamcbride.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}