Since Easter, we have been praying with Ian Reid's book,

Meditations from the Iona Community.

In one recent meditation on thankfulness, he asks repeatedly,

That question prompted these reflections.

How much do we take for granted? Ian Reid asks that question repeatedly, in his meditation on thankfulness. How much – from the beauty of a rose to the clean water running from our taps – do we take for granted?

The dictionary says “take for granted” means “to assume (something) as true, real, unquestionable, or to be expected.” Do we take beauty as something to be expected? What about our next breath?

A second meaning of “take for granted” is “to value (something or someone) too lightly: to fail to properly notice or appreciate.” I think of the lines of a poem recently posted by Jenni Ho-Huan, who writes of “hearts grown too cold and too old / for creation’s glory.”

At the time I was going through it I really didn’t understand what was happening until years later. It wasn’t like Thomas Merton’s ‘epiphany’ at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, but rather a slow seepage of savant-like juices, gelling years later.

Some call it ‘mid-life’; I call it searching. I became a retreat junkie, earned an intensive experiential Professional Enneagram Certification, and journeyed on foreign pilgrimages. As a World History teacher, I was familiar with ancient world religions: Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, and Judaism; I practiced Kundalini yoga with a Sikh, I dabbled in Buddhism, and I read what Confucius had to say. I was enthralled by Rumi, Tagore, Hafiz, and Kahlil Gibran. The prophets and poets, and particularly ancient pictographs of cave dwellers, confirmed what I interpreted to be true: there is an afterlife for which we all search.

It was a slow and arduous search. Then one day a spiritual guide told me, “If you think you have ‘arrived’ and you, on the spiritual scale of one to 10, think that you’re an 8, you’re probably about a one and a half.” Was I taking my spiritual life for granted?

Then one day I found myself in jail. By that time, as a member of the Catholic Lay Preaching Guild, our Archbishop Patricio Flores urged us to take the Word to our incarcerated brothers and sisters. Leading weekly Liturgy of the Word services for the inmates awakened my mind to the Word’s message, to the Spirit, to truth. I fell passionately in love with the Word.

Maybe by now I might be about a two and a half. I take very little for granted. And I am constant in my self-understanding as a “Guest House” (Rumi) – as Rumi poetically describes a human being as a guest house where joy, sorrows, and malice visit:

Iona, the historic holy island off Scotland's western coast, is the ultimate source of these reflections. The 10-minute video below will introduce you to Iona, or you can also read Bill's longer reflection on our website, written after we visited Iona in 2006.

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