A dear friend reminded me this week that we are smack-dab in the middle of the season of reflection and gratitude, despite the contrary indicators of jam-packed calendars and distracting sparkly holiday sweaters and occasional bouts of end-of-year whining.

Luckily our conversation sent me straight to the wonderful Anne Lamott for refuge, and her book Help Thanks Wow opened right up to these lines:

Love falls to the earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. love pulls people back to their feet. bodies and souls are fed. bones and lives heal. new blades of grass grow from charred soil. the sun rises.

This passage started to set me straight.

Then, the very next day, my amazing mom sent me a little note that read, “I said a prayer for you today.” What greater gift could there possibly be than to know that another person is holding you in their prayers? There is no easier on-ramp to gratitude than receiving a note like that.

In the same book, Lamott says, “as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.”

Dear Honeybees, as we revel in year end business and busy-ness, with hopefully some reflection and gratitude mixed in, I am holding you in my prayers.

So buckle up.

Things can happen.

* Yes, this photo is my very own St. Joseph, who was buried in the backyard while I waited for my home to be sold earlier this year. I dug him up before leaving, of course, and he is safe and sound, presiding in a place of honor in my new abode.