One of the few vestiges of my very religious upbringing that I still give any countenance to is Watchnight Service. Watchnight Service dates back to slavery times when slaves would bring in the new year together in church... or something like that. To be honest, I don't quite remember but it's one of the few days of the year you're guaranteed to find my ass in church. Yup, I'm gon bring in the new year with "The Lawd". Now, I know that the "Lawd" is omnipresent and that by the modus ponens (If P then Q; P therefore Q) I technically can't bring in the new year w/o "The Lawd". Unfortunately, The Revs. Michael & Felecia Smith (my parents) could give a fuck about modus ponens, modus tollens, or any other logical argument I could construct concerning the omnipresence of God. All that matters is that their son better give "The Lawd" the respect he's due and enter the new year in praise and worship. So I go to Watchnight every year as much as out of respect for tradition as I do to bring in the new year with my family and assuage my parent's fears that I am a completely godless heathen speeding in the HOV lane to hell.
After service, I'm outside when my Cousin Billy or Herman or one of the sons of my grandfather's 12 brothers & sisters that I never talk to, proceeds to lay out an assortment of hood pyrotechnics in the bed of what looks like the first F150 ever made. These were small scale fireworks. Wouldn't surprise me if they were home made. When he set them off it was apparent that they were more fire than works. They looked like someone had connected jumper cables to the wrong terminals of a car battery. One of the explosives actually looked like an old car battery that he had set on fire.
This didn't stop a few of the younger kids at the church from marvelling at the display, though. As he continued to string together his homemade fireworks show the kids jumped up and down with excitement and delight. Did they care that the shit looked like an E & M (Electricty & Magnetism) lab gone horribly wrong? Not in the least. All they saw was sparks coming from objects out the back of a beat up truck and that's all they needed to be ecstatic.
It reminded me of the title of this blog. I know so many times I get caught up in focusing on the proverbial bullshit that I forget how great life is. Life, this ocean that we all swim in, is such a beuatiful thing. Life is beuatiful whether you know it or not is something I tell myself to remind me of this fact when it seems like the shit won't stop hitting the fan. Most matters in life are more about perception than anything and since my perception of events is the thing most in my control, I figured out I better figure out the what the beauty is in any situation. I encourage you all to practice this as it will keep you from killing yourself and/or others when times get tough.
But at that particular moment, I had to stop & thank the Big Homie. In the heart of the hood, surrounded by the sound of distant and not so distant gunshots, I was allowed to see this moment of beauty to start off my new year. I just felt grateful to be alive in the "ocean".
Please take time as often as you can to observe the beauty of life this year.
Happy New Year. - AS
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