In which I talk about remembering my blessings

An old guy named Plato, whose name is on books I’ve heard of but haven’t read, talked about three things they called the transcendentals: goodness, truth, and beauty.

Stay with me—I got the woozles just typing that.

I’m not a philosopher. I can name the Braves starting lineup from the 1995 World Series, but I couldn’t tell you any of the great thinkers or their great thoughts. My biggest run-ins with philosophy are probably when I’m watching Winnie the Pooh with my daughter, and Pooh goes to his “Thotful place,” puts his hand on his head, and says, “Think, think, think, think, think.”

But I don’t need to define the transcendentals. Honestly, defining them is kind of silly to me because things like that are hidden from our minds. They are matters of the heart and spirit and our minds tend to come in and spoil the whole thing.

Transcendentals are the moments in life when something whispers, “This is what it’s really about,” and you know it in the depth of your bones that’s true.

Our problem is we forget (blasted minds show up and ruin it, and then can’t even hold on to the memories).

I need to remember.

I need to remember that Orion has a belt that makes him easy to find from November to February. And whether I’m in Tennessee or California, he’s there, and just seeing him reminds me that stories are written into the sky.

I need to remember that there are good fathers.

I need to remember that sunsets could have been boring, but every one seems to shout at me as if it were the only one, and that by staring at my phone or the television, I’ll miss it forever.

I need to remember baseball games, campfires, peanut butter cookies, and grandma hugs.

I need to remember the man from my church who went to Mexico because his son wanted him to go. Something happened to him down there. Now he drives refugees here in Knoxville to church every week in a big passenger van.

I need to remember that hope is better than despair. That kindness is better than saying snarky things on Twitter. That gentleness is a Fruit of the Spirit, and winning arguments is not.

I need to remember that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and that I see this nowhere more than in the way my wife likes to hold my daughter until she falls asleep in her arms.

I need to remember that some books will make me wish I could read them for the first time again.

I need to remember that money won’t fix my problems, heal my heart, or save my soul, but my neighbor in need could still use a $20.

I need to remember that the hope of my faith is a Kingdom. In a world where governments and militaries and committees rule by the dollar and the butt of the rifle, my hope is a Kingdom where this very ground is worth the toil of my hands and the sweat of my brow. Where it is worth having children to see them run over that ground in their bare feet while their grandmothers chase them with socks so they “don’t go catchin’ a cold.” A Kingdom where the ground will not hold its dead but will give them back someday—somehow better for having been broken, buried, and put back together by love that is stronger than death.

But I’m not a philosopher. My favorite philosopher is a bear of very little brain who says things like “Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.”

Maybe that’s what the transcendentals are: the places and moments where the poetry and hums find you.

I’ll try to remember.