I was riding through a residential area that I don’t have occasion to visit often when I noticed a small cross on the side of a house. I thought to myself, what a nice idea! Of course, I don’t know the reason for its being there, but it could be a pleasant little reminder to say a prayer before you go out in the car on an errand, or to pray in thanksgiving at your safe return.

In these days of carefulness about sanitizing, I often go to my kitchen sink as soon as I return from an outing and wash my hands. I grab the plastic bottle of dish detergent, give it a squeeze, and wash for the recommended 20 seconds. Lots of times I will notice some tiny bubbles that come out of the bottle along with the liquid soap; they float in the air all around me for a second or two. Each bubble, self-contained, silently reflecting the sunlight, gently glides through the air. They remind me of the numerous little blessings I take for granted each day of my life. My hands function, I have clean running water, I can smell the lemony fragrance, I can sanitize even though I have happily received my two doses of virus vaccine. Sure, those are small things, but they should not be overlooked.

People are easily reminded of bad events in their lives—a scar on their skin reminds them of an accident; a dent in the car brings to mind the time someone backed into them; a doctor’s bill evokes a recent illness that was not completely covered by insurance. We all encounter such reminders, but we have to try to keep a balance by also noticing the good reminders in our everyday life.

I assume most of us hav­e little treasures or keepsakes that we hold dear. A few years ago, I decided to share my little collection of music boxes with my two teenaged granddaughters. I set the music boxes out on a table and told the girls they each could choose one. I expected that each of them would happily pick one and cherish it forever because, if for no other reason, it was their grandma’s. To my dismay, neither of them really wanted a music box and politely declined. So much for sentimentality!

I figured out that those music boxes were not things that these modern young teens had personal experience with and, while the girls love me, they could not relate to my keepsakes. Maybe those music boxes are for older people.

I remember some discussions around that time in which the implication was that religious practices, too, were more for older people. Perhaps in my granddaughters’ immaturity, they preferred experiences that were more tangibly interactive on their level. With cell phones, computers, and so many sights and sounds at their fingertips, it seemed that taking time to savor or treasure something didn’t have the appeal it had for me who had not had all the hi-tech devices in my youth.