It’s raining. Our cat is captivated. She usually likes to sit in the bathtub, swat the hose going up to the shower head, and then chase the drops of water that fall back down toward her face.I don’t know which is more funny — the cat who can swat and chase forever, or the guy who could watch the cat swat and chase forever. But now that it’s raining, the cat sits in front of the screen door. The outer door is open, and the cat can see the drops of water coming off the side of the building and falling onto the concrete patio.Sometimes she crawls up the screen as if to get to it. Sometimes she cocks her head to one side as if to say, “What’s THAT!?” And there I am, watching the cat watch the rain.It takes the ability to enjoy simple things if one is to live one day at a time. Jesus told His disciples: “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”Yes, and each day also has enough beauty and goodness of its own. Take right this instant for example. It is quiet in the house, the cats are sleeping.Thoughts of injustice could fill my mind, because there have been instances of what I regard to be injustice lately. I will not go into the details of them, but they all involve human suffering in which one person brought tragedy upon others, or one person was visited by tragedy, or one person’s presence reminded others of wrongs suffered at their hands.I can get angry about such things. At times in my life I have felt twisted up in knots, tense, pressing my lips and squinting my eyes with a pressure in my chest and a fury in my arms. I’ve had acid in my gut eating me up.But the anger of man does not accomplish the righteousness of God, and I have to tell myself that sometimes. I have to let go and concentrate on the good, and the beautiful, that which makes for peace. I choose to be at peace as much as I possibly can. Worry will not add another day to my life, and anger will not allow God’s grace to work through me in the world.This morning I sat across from my wife while we had breakfast at Bouchée. We were describing how past events in our lives have contributed to the people we are today, and also how sometimes it’s necessary to revisit a previous time, so as to fill in the blanks of some unfinished business.It was kind of like watching the cat watch the rain; I was captivated. My wife was talking about interacting with guys she’d known when she still lived with her parents, and I noticed the light falling on her face, the way her eyes checked the room, the angle of her head, her shoulders, and the colours in her hair.I felt warmth of affection breath over me. This unique and wonderful woman sat there with me, talking to me, sharing herself with me, and it did not have to be like that. That moment was filled with beauty and goodness. It was a gift — an undeserved favour.We have a relationship that works on spiritual, emotional, intellectual, and physical levels. I was not an innocent little boy when we met, but I’ve never known a woman in this way before. Perhaps it’s just that it took me a long time to meet and get to know THIS woman. Either way, there I sat, and I was content, very happy, to watch the person I love watch the people around us and be fully present having breakfast. It was a simple thing, yet, an important thing.Mindfulness is this kind of awareness of what is currently going on, but it’s not a ruminating, dark preoccupation with the trouble in one’s life. Mindfulness is the awareness of what else is taking place; it is the balancing out of trouble with the consideration of what is positive.St. Paul said: “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.”Indeed. Psychological research has shown that such mindfulness is effective for stress relief, as well as the reduction of depression.Have you ever looked down inside the petals of a flower? Have you watched the birds glide on the wind or the swells roll across the Great Sound? Have you looked out across to the horizon, and sensed the movement of the clouds?Doing these kinds of things grounds a person in one’s place. There is a feeling of being part of something that has been going on for a long time, and it makes one’s passing, daily troubles, seem small.There may indeed be trouble. Each day surely has some, but life is more than a day’s trouble, and people are more than the sum of their dysfunctions, hardships, setbacks, failures, and disabilities.I often ask myself: “What kind of a person do you want to be today … right now … in THIS situation?”I have a critical mind, and I can always see how something is not quite perfect. But, if I live in that kind of critical attitude, then I poison my own life, and the lives of those with whom I come into contact.If I preoccupy my attention with the troubles of the day, I drag myself down and become a morose sceptic, sure that nothing could possibly turn out right. I don’t want to be that kind of person. I want to do what I can about the troubles, but live in the beauty. I want to wonder in appreciation of life, which is constantly going on all around me.I want to watch the cat watch the rain, and I want to let the simplicity of that delight me.