I’m sitting on the porch this Sunday morning enjoying the beauty of another day on God’s green Earth. The sun is so bright, the sky so blue, the clouds so white. I can’t help but think of the Bible verse in Psalms 118:24, “This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” We should thank God for these beautiful days. We just take them for granted and grumble about stormy days but those stormy days help us appreciate the days without storm clouds.

Ate breakfast on the porch and watched all the juvenile cardinals visiting the feeders. Everyone of them is a different color. All so beautiful with their brownish and grayish feathers and their fluffy little breasts. They look like little cadet soldiers on alert, their crest cap feathers sticking straight up, nervous and trying to relax enough to eat some seeds. Their beaks are blackish brown. No reddish brown beaks yet. They’ll change uniforms in November growing their red tail feathers first.

Went back out at dusk and watched the orange ball of the sun lay her head down for the night. Lots of rain clouds nearby, always makes for more colorful sunsets. Saw the most beautiful clouds! Sat on the porch trying to come up with the correct words to describe them. Never seen the clouds colored like this. The colors on top of the clouds were so delicate compared to their dark purple bottoms. Wish I had captured the clouds on film but they disappeared quickly.

Think of paint charts in colors of pink, orange, purple and blue. Now turn those paint charts into watercolor trays. You dip your brush in clean, clear water and lightly touch each color of the paint tray. Gently drag the brush across the top of the cloud where it’s kissed by the sun and meld the colors together. The watercolors frame the cotton ball fluff of a large dark purple rain cloud. Kind of like you crumbled up a rainbow and dropped it on top of the cloud. Just wondrous!

I’m always talking about pondering on the meaning of life while I sit in the swing and watch my small town world go by. Is it the pursuit of happiness and love? Is it kindness and compassion? I think the meaning of life is to find your gift and to share the gift with the world. We are all special in God’s eyes and are born with a uniqueness all our own. Research says “every human being is born with some soft of gift, an inclination or an instinct that can become a full-blown mastery.” We have talents and gifts we need to nurture and share with the world. You don’t have to be a genius to change the world.

Princess Diana shook the hand of a man diagnosed with AIDS in a hospital in London without wearing gloves and changed the conversations on AIDS. The simple compassionate act of shaking hands challenged the belief that AIDS could be transmitted by touch.

We can change the world with something as simple as a smile. Smiling is an instinctual behavior, not a learned behavior. All human beings smile, even those born blind. Smiling is contagious and leads to happiness and happiness is contagious. Let’s all spread some smiles around today.

“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away,” — William Shakespeare and Pablo Picasso.