蜜芽传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Harry Baker

Good morning.

This Sunday I turn 11000 days old. This roughly translates as 30 years, 1 month and 12 days - but that feels less catchy. The reason I am aware of this fact is because of a poem I wrote as a teenager called Paper People. As I was writing it my mum told me that my grandparents had been praying for me every single day since I was born. I thought this was incredible, so used to quote how old I was in days whenever I performed the poem, as that was the number of times I knew someone had been thinking about me in that way.

When I was 8396 days old my grandpa died, so I paused the number in the poem as a reference to him, and it meant that my 10,000th birthday was always marked out in the calendar as something I didn鈥檛 want to miss. My way of celebrating in style was taking a show all about poetry and maths up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival entitled 鈥淚 am 10,000鈥� before touring it around the UK. One thing I loved about doing the show was how many people told me they had also celebrated turning 10,000. These are the same people who got excited when this year the date was all twos and just so happened to fall on a Tuesday, or the moment when you turn 31.69 years old, when you have been alive for exactly a billion seconds (I can鈥檛 wait!). One mum brought her son along to the show and described him as someone who sees patterns and beauty where other people just see nerd. That was me as a teenager and is who I aspire to be today.

God thank you that we live in a world full of patterns and beauty. We pray today you would give us a chance to look at the things we take for granted around us and see them in a new light. Thank you for the many reasons we have to celebrate life, from the magnificent to the minute, and we pray for more opportunities to share those moments of celebration with others. I also pray for my grandma - it鈥檚 about time I returned the favour.

Amen