Well, I was feeling really blessed yesterday (and still do today).  Here we are (Anne and I) at a nice place on the Oregon coast.  The day before we saw my favorite cousin and her family from Corvallis.  That morning we went to services at a local Episcopal Church.  And in the afternoon, I was listening to the waves break outside the sliding door, smelling the cool salt breeze, and sampling pieces in books I brought along on my kindle.  One of those books was about a woman who spent a year abroad (called something like “Eat, Pray, Love”) split equally between Italy (for food and pleasure), India (for the ashram of her guru) and (I believe) Indonesia where she would visit (as best I recall) a witchdoctor, who had promised to help her learn to integrate the spiritual and pleasure impulses in her life.  I was reading, still, about her enjoyment of food and life in general in Italy (which she contrasted to our need to be entertained, often at great expense, here in the United States).

It made me want to eat good Italian food.

We had tomato slices (from our garden) with fresh mozzarella cheese and a chicken pasta dish with a nice California chardonay for dinner.  Not really Italian.  But very good food non the less.  And then I got hooked on a book I’d read years before and read into the wee hours of this morning.

Nothing spectacular.  But it’s hard to imagine anything much more enjoyable.  It was life worth savoring, slowly.

I probably won’t get to Evening Prayer at the local church in an hour.  I’m committed to a walk on the beach with my wife instead.  I’m pretty sure God won’t mind.