No, I’m not going to open this column with a song. But I will tell you that this hymn popped into my head this morning as I was walking out in the cool spring sunshine. Appropriately enough, since this is the season when I never fail to be amazed by the grace and miracle of the world.

This is nothing new or even particularly profound. But it bears repeating once in a while. We don’t always remind ourselves of the grace--or the gifts--that we experience in this world. In the past few days, I can think of a myriad of gifts that I have experienced--the second blooming of my brilliant yellow daffodils, the companionship of family and friends, the thrill of a new baseball season, anticipation of a new garden, the beloved community that is this congregation. And so on. So many opportunities to explore.

Pope Saint Gregory the Great wrote many, many years ago: “All men wondered to see the water turned into wine. Every day the earth’s moisture being drawn into the root of a vine, is turned by the grape into wine, and no man wonders. Full of wonder then are all the things, which men never think to wonder at.”

So easily can the ordinary reveal its extraordinariness, if only we look at it the right way.

Or maybe we trick ourselves by thinking that anything in this world is less than extraordinary.

Grace is also about gratitude. You know, as in saying grace before meals. I was never really comfortable with this practice, having grown up in a rational humanist tradition. Who, after all, was I thanking for whatever was set before me? But I don’t think of it that way anymore. Nor do I always say grace. But there are times when I sit down to eat, and the company or the food or the moment reminds me how grateful I am for the company or the food or the moment or the gift of life. And so I offer thanks, sometimes silently, sometimes aloud. Just to give thanks. And to remember not to take the abundance of my life for granted.

G.K. Chesterton writes: “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.”

There are infinite gifts around us. There is always something to be grateful for.

Amazing.

May we see this grace, and offer our own.