THE SMALL MERCIES THAT MAKE LIFE GREAT

PROBABLY, right up to this minute, you weren’t aware that you were breathing in and breathing out. And that it was keeping you alive.

Some say you were taking it for granted, others teach you about the sympathetic nervous system.

The truth is, we don’t think about it in terms of being grateful. Let’s face it, if you were no longer breathing in and breathing out, you would not be reading this.

This happy condition, called respiration, was reified in that oddly reluctant love-song from My Fair

Lady: “I’ve grown accustomed to her face… like breathing out and breathing in…”

There are more things that happen all the time that maintain a quality of life for us mortals.

Like blinking. This is a natural act that lubricates the eyeballs and keeps them frictionless while we’re awake. Even while we’re asleep.

The most obvious life-sustaining automatic body-function has to be the heart.

We won’t dwell on that one, because failure in that area requires interventions that are as extreme and radical as they are becoming more successful and sustainable.

Let’s move to body functions that don’t have discernible movement. Such as the eyebrows, or nose-hairs, or ear-hairs.

Or other hirsute areas that decorum prevents us from listing. They have a function.

A university colleague in science really burnt my socks when she suggested that women have long hair because of multiple births.

She suggested that the many offspring could hold on to the mother’s flowing locks while she searched for food in the swamp in which they resided. That really goes far back in the evolution narrative. Thanks for that one, Bubu.

I won’t belabour you with further examples, except to remind you that some bodily functions are seen as signs of illness when they, in truth, are signs of good health.

Girls are taught that they are sick when they menstruate. We are seen to be sick when we vomit, or produce rivers of snot, or waxy ears. We treat a cough that actually dislodges unwelcome phlegm. These are functions that rid the body of invasion by foreign matter.

The point of this article is a gentle reminder for us to look at the small mercies that make life so great. Such as smell, and taste, and touch, and balance. We can reinforce these health assets by cultivating our own veggies, nurturing a pot plant, starting a vivarium, learning a skill such as knitting. We can adopt a younger learner and teach them appreciation of these basics. We can adopt an older person and read to them, or run errands, or ask them to tell you of the good old days.

So breathe in and smell God’s love and your own sense of goodness. It makes the day begin, like breathing out and breathing in…