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After reading Ross Gay's The Book of Delights, I was so over the moon with joy and inspiration that I decided to start writing something down every day about that which delights me in journal entry style. Here you will find some selected entries. 

But first, allow me share a poem called Mindful by Mary Oliver; a poet who reminds me that the act of paying attention is one of the most important and delightful forms of devotion and prayer. 

Every day
    I see or hear
         something
              that more or less

kills me
    with delight,
         that leaves me
              like a needle

in the haystack
    of light.
         It was what I was born for --
              to look, to listen,

to lose myself
    inside this soft world --
         to instruct myself
              over and over

in joy,
    and acclamation.
         Nor am I talking
              about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
    the very extravagant --
         but of the ordinary,
              the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
    Oh, good scholar,
         I say to myself,
              how can you help

but grow wise
    with such teachings
         as these --
              the untrimmable light

of the world,
    the ocean's shine,
         the prayers that are made
              out of grass?

©2023 by angelcatherinechen.com

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