Simple Joys

Lately, I cannot get this one song out of my head. (And no, ArtGuy and Cookie Boy - despite the fact that you want to ingrain the Lord of the Rings theme set to vuvzelas into my brain through your incessant humming, that is not the song I am talking about!)

The song is "Little Church', by Donovan, from the 1972 movie "Brother Sun, Sister Moon".  Being educated at a Franciscan university (Franciscan University of Steubenville), the song became quite familiar to me! The movie is dated, but I never get tired of the story of St. Francis. Kind of like the movie Apollo 13 - I can hear it over and over and over!

If you want your dream to be,
Build it slow and surely.
Small beginnings greater ends.
Heartfelt work grows purely.

If you want to live life free,
Take your time go slowly.
Do few things but do them well.
Simple joys are holy.

Day by day, stone by stone,
Build your secret slowly.
Day by day, you'll grow, too,
You'll know heaven's glory.

It's really those 2 lines that get me - "Do few things but do them well. Simple joys are holy".

As a mother of four boys, I can safely say I rarely ever "do few things" in any given day. It is always "wash this, clean that, wipe this, direct that, teach this, make that, drive this one here, drive that one there" and so on. Not that I am making a litany of complaints. It is simply a reality of mothering young children.
That tendency to be scattered as a mother often leads to scattered-ness in other things as well. I often read a little of this, then that, while writing this article, then working on that book, all the while researching this area. In the end, I do nothing slowly (except for those things I procrastinate on), and often forget to look at the simple joys.

My simple joys are: a sunset, the smell of a young child's freshly washed hair, reading a book to a cuddly toddler, holding hands with my husband, playing cards with the boys, and listening to music.

What are your simple joys?