Elese Coit

Over lunch today my Mom and I reminisced how in our household growing up we decided not to celebrate birthdays.  Instead my brother and I were accorded a "special day" we could chose to be anytime of the year on any particular day.

I was particularly in favor of this idea because my birthday falling on the 27th of July meant I never got cards or a cake at school like other kids with birthdays during the school year.   While I was picturing school parties and lots of presents, the real reason for our family choice was that my mother and father raised us in  Christian Science.  When your fundamental operating principle is that our true identity is spirit and the physical world is not real, but an illusion - it follows that it might not make much sense to celebrate the passage of time.

Most of my life I spent questioning the ideas I was raised with, but I have to admit, we had something when it came to the birthday thing.

Cakes, presents and all the rest are fun, but perhaps the point of today is really to be happy to be here. Period.  When you consider that the past is gone and the future does not exist, then each moment is a kind of lucky break.  It's a new now in the grace of simply being alive.

That is something to remember everyday.  Glad to be here.  Glad to be alive. 

Breathe.