Gratitude

Today I think I’ll make a point of being grateful.  It almost seems to me that grumbling is the default position.  It’s incredible how in so many places grumbling prevails.  It can be the government, cost of living, neighbours, a take away meal.
That is not to say many situations are not less than ideal.  Yet in my mind it is probably a good thing to often dwell on what is good. It seems to be healthier.
Speaking of health, I am thankful for access to food I have. The sort of access to food available here puts me with in the top 1% of the world’s population.  I can wander down to the shops and get provisions.  Merril was away during the week and she prepared much for me to have.  We joked that “you won’t starve” knowing there are many take away joints in walking distance if it comes to it.
That sort of reminds me of other things I can be thankful for.  We live in a beautiful part of the world.  Less than 500 meters away we have parks with walking tracks.  I have been on them a couple of times this week and I love seeing families walking their dog or walkers intent on walking for exercise.  Or people just wandering and looking.
Or people like me going from a to b and looking around while listening to music.  I must confess when ever I see another in the distance I take off the earphones so I can say gedday.  I have heard it said wearing earphones is the universal languange that says; “I don’t want to talk to you.”  So for me it is like the best of both worlds.
I am thankful for my neighbours to.  Just recently that has been like a movable feast.  We now have fairly new people on the corner.  We have not met them yet but they wave back to us.  The guy that had been there for years passed.  I had gone to him when I had not seen him for a while and asked if he was ok.  At that point he was, but he was on the way out.  New people live there now.
We have new neighbours in the place adjoining us.  I think they moved in yesterday.  The previous owners have moved to Caloundra.
We also have new neighbours renting next door.  They are so quiet.  The family before them we called “the ferals.”  They were the noisiest, roughest neigbours we have ever had here.  We had been praying the right neighbours would inhabit the place.  We got to meet the kids and that family is so on our prayer radar now.
I reckon I could write pages and pages of what I am thankful for.  Truth be known we have got it pretty good, and it does not take a lot to find something to be thankful for.