Hear, O kings; give ear, O princes; to the L ORD I will sing, I will make melody to the LORD , the God of Israel.
This little line comes from the Song of Deborah, a song to recount some of the history of the time of the judges, and a song of celebration. The accompanying reflection is from Dallas Willard, who focuses on celebration. For people of faith, any kind of celebration is a celebration of God. God created the wondrous world with all its beauty in which we have picnics. God created the miracles of birth and aging that we celebrate in parties. God created the great circle of life, that we celebrate in lives lived well and ended.
I’ve been trying to live a life full of gratitude, ending my day with a quick recount of the day’s events that warrant gratitude. I’ve read that when you start seeing opportunities for gratitude, they multiply. And my experience proves that true.
Where gratitude is an inward quiet reaction of goodness, perhaps a celebration is more outward and not-so-quiet reaction to goodness. Gratitude is how I feel. Celebrate is what I do. I’ve been building more gratitude into my days. What would it look like if I could also build celebration in? I spend a good amount of time in my head, thinking. What if I could turn my gratitude into an outward expression with my body, my voice, my actions? I can imagine that would be a good thing to balance out my heady nature.
This morning, I’m thinking about how to build in more celebrations throughout the day, little bodily acknowledgments of all that I am grateful for. Maybe a high-five, or a little cheer. Right now, I’m grateful that I buckled down and wrote, although I didn’t think I wanted to (gratitude). And to that, I say out loud, Woo hoo! (celebration).
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