Discipline of celebration

A friend of mine gave me Shauna Niequist's Cold Tangerines for my birthday. I've been indulging myself over the last few days and reading through it.

In the introduction, Niequist writes:

The discipline of celebration is changing my life, and it is because of the profound discoveries that this way of living affords to me that I invite you into the same practice. This collection is a tap dance on the fresh graves of apathy and cynicism, the creeping belief that this is all there is, and that God is no match for the wreckage of the world we live in. What God does in the tiny corners of our day-to-day lives is stunning and gorgeous and headline-making, but we have a bad habit of saving the headlines for the grotesque and scary.
...To choose to celebrate in the world we live in right now might seem irresponsible. It might see frivolous, like cotton candy and charm bracelets. But I believe it is a serious undertaking, and one that has the potential to return us to our best selves, to deliver us back to the men and women God created us to be, people who choose to see the best, believe the best, yearn for the best. Through that longing to be our best selves, we are changed and inspired and ennobled, able to see the handwriting of a holy God where another person just sees the same old tired streets and sidewalks.

Great words. Words that I continually need to be reminded of. It's so easy for me to fall into cynicism and pessimism, to be overwhelmed at the brokenness in the world.