GRATEFULNESS FOR BIRTHDAYS

"I love birthdays. However, in the spirit of gratefulness and love I would
suggest that the birthday be celebrated a little differently. When the child is
old enough, it is my recommendation that not the son or daughter receive
gifts and attention, but the parents. After all, without the parents the child
would not have received the greatest of all gifts, the gift of life. Would it not
be more fitting and spiritually enlightening for the one whose birth is being
recognized to express gratefulness not by receiving gifts but by giving them
to the source of their life? "

The above is an excerpt from my forthcoming book--"I THANK THEREFORE I AM-GRATEFULNESS AS HEALING."
Tomorrow I will be 69 years old.I know that my family and friends will honor me by bestowing a gift of a quiet and modest celebration for which I will be most grateful. Perhaps there will be tangible gifts as well. In fact, however, the giving should be redirected, from me to them- I give them my gratitude for their care, support and love. Thus this birthday I say thank you to family-parents who gave me life and nurtured it, to siblings who served as partners in the act of child rearing, to my wife and children without whom my life's value and worth would dramatically diminish, if not entirely disappear.
A good friend, a poet, shared an essay with me which I consider a precious birthday gift in spite of his not being aware of this occasion. The essay, by Pat Schneider, is titled: IF I WERE GOD. The following are several selections:
"If I were God, I would make a world exactly like this one. I love its inconsistencies,its contradictions...I love it that people are free, even to be selfish and to think they own beaches and mountaintops and have the right to keep the poor off them. I love it that things change, that the boundaries of nations and the fences of the rich get torn down sometimes...I love it that I don't know exactly where I am, because it helps me to remember that I don't know exactly where Earth is in this galaxy, or where this galaxy is in this universe, or whether I have only this lifetime or we have many lifetimes . I love supposing this one is the only one, because it keeps me mindful of how precious everything is."
A special thanks to the readers of this blog-your interest in the best gift of all.
With deepest gratefulness to the Source of All things,
Shabbat Shalom