Maybe I am getting old- or maybe just oldER.  

Maybe I am just getting nostalgic.

Maybe I am just becoming more of a #noticer of things and people and experiences.

I don’t know about you, but as I add days and years to my life I am more and more enthralled and captivated by some of the things that aren’t so big in this life.

I call them simple pleasures.  

And the reality is that they are simple.  And hugely complex.

A sunset.  A sunrise.  A walk to work.  A dinner with my family uninterrupted by, really, anything.

Some quiet time in the morning with a cup of coffee, my journal, and my Bible, in front of the fireplace.  

A conversation with an old friend.  Or the chance to hear the rest of the story from someone I just met.  

A Sunday afternoon #sabbath with nothing on the agenda other than resting up for the upcoming week.

The crazy thing about all of these things is that I barely noticed them as I was constantly chasing bigger, grander, new and shiny.  They have always been there.  I just haven’t noticed them.  

When is the last time you took in a sunset?  I mean really took it in?  When was the last time you lingered longer for a conversation?  When is the last time you really weren’t busy and could just observe?  What if God is calling us into that right now?  In the midst of the chaos and craziness of this season and families and end of the year and deadlines?  What if he is calling us into the joy of simple pleasures?  

I know.  I know. There are so many responsibilities.  We can’t always be carefree, throw caution to the wind, and just sit and observe.  One consistent pattern I have found in my life is that I can either choose into slowing down occasionally and just enjoying and observing, or it will be chosen for me, through a crisis or emergency or sickness.

I suspect that I am not the only one.  

As I had a rare few minutes before a call with my coach today, I reflected on the not-so-big things in my life that really are a very big deal.  

So I will savor the gift of a meal.  In a warm office.  Treating amazing people. With a very gifted team who loves people well.  And then I will walk home in the snow and wind.  Grateful for the abilities to put one foot in front of the other and to have gear that keeps me warm.  

None of those things will make the headlines.  But they are all amazing to me.  

I hope you find and experience your simple pleasures this week and going forward.  Life is not all lived in the large and the grand.  There is peace and the joy in the simple.  It won’t find us accidentally.  We will need to be intentional about seeking it out.  The reward will be worth it.  I guarantee it.  

#WINtheNOW