Friday, December 7, 2012

Advent Day 9



Esther de Waal is the author who showed Steve and me what it meant to live sacramentally.  Steve read her book Seeking God over and over again and even read and discussed it with our older girls in their senior year of highschool.   Here is a cherished quote from Esther De Waal.

“Gift is the principle on which the Creator has based human existence; it is the most pervasive, even if little noticed, reality of our lives. We have life itself by others’ gift of procreation, pregnancy and childbirth. We are sustained in life by the good things of nature and by the labour, generosity and society of other human beings. We are educated by the self-giving of our teachers. We are sustained constantly by gifts—love, forgiveness, reconciliation, pleasure. Our whole life is a fabrication of gifts received, and we ourselves contribute our gifts to the lives of others.”  Esther De Waal

She wrote in her book Lost in Wonder about the idea of taking a magnifying glass around with us for a few yours, just to help us notice and attend.