Heart Pocket Word for the Day is Serenity!

The word from my heart pocket is Serenity.

It's the end of the day. My friend was on vacation and had spent time in the sun with friends, chatting and eating good food and relaxing. Her life is normally busy with grandchildren and caregiving and not unlike most of us, the business of life. 

Life is noisy and unpredictable and just when you think it's evening out, something pops up to surprise us. We wish for peace. For serenity. 

It doesn't matter what our job is or what age we are or in what stage of our lives we find ourselves. When life gets too chaotic, we want it to stop for just a moment - to catch our breath, to remember who we are, to feel the calm of serenity.

Serenity is a kind of sacredness. We don't have to be religious or a spiritual practitioner to understand this. The effect that serenity has in our lives is unmistakable and when we allow it, it heals whatever ails us. 

Sometimes there is great clarity in times of serenity. When we're experiencing it, the coffee tastes better, we notice the sound of the breeze through the treetops, we feel the beating of our own heart and it sounds like the waves lapping the shore - rhythmic, gentle, miraculous.

There is a time for serenity. Human beings seem to wish for excitement when there is too much serenity and the opposite is true. But we live in a boisterous world. It's fast and furious and can be deafening at times. When we do the world for too long, we lose our composure. That's the time when a moment of serenity works its magic. 

Serenity can come from music, or holding a book in your hands and reading (not your kindle) or lying on a beach and listening to the waves. It can come from making a piece of art or stitching, a day of fishing or hiking in the woods. Serenity is organic. It is a form of prayer and although for some that means church, it isn't exclusive to the building. 

In fact, church has become a social place - for fellowship and gathering and collective worship. Serenity is an alone practice. We don't have to be alone to experience it, but that is when it most often appears in our lives.

Let it in. Allow serenity to wrap you in its arms and rock you for awhile. Let it remind you that you are loved and treasured and valued for your humanness. Feel the nurturing of serenity, its gentle sensibility and at the core, the connection it offers to all that is.

My friend's view from the swing ...