This is a busy season. Especially for rabbis. I think I take delight in little things. This are my joys. These are my morning blessings.

• The morning coffee brewed just so, a dollop of whipped cream on top, aroma perking up my taste buds.
• The phone call from a friend, just checking in.
• The morning walk and seeing the expanse of the prairie sky.
• The drive home. Another phone call from another friend
• The house, porch lights on shining like a beacon
• The dog wagging his tail when I come home, asking to be pet in exactly the spot he needs.
• The welcome home kiss.
• The dinner, ready to go, prepared lovingly by husband or daughter
• The conversation over dinner.
• The whirlpool bathtub, good book
• The clean sheets on the bed.
• The blessing of another day. Good night, world!

I think the challenge is to notice those little details. To turn them into blessings. The rabbis of the Talmud taught that we should say 100 Blessings a day. If we are regular shul goers that’s easy. But the challenge is still hard. While we have been given a text, I see it as a jumping off point. Grateful to G-d for the wisdom to distinguish between night and day? You bet. Grateful for the crowing the rooster or the barking of a dog, maybe not so much. Grateful to be able to get out of bed, open my eyes, put on clothes and greet the new day. Sure. Grateful if I overdid my run the day before and everything hurts? Harder.

The challenge to noticing the little things that bring us joy is on the days when nothing seems to be right. There are some days that are like that. Days we spend hours on the phone with Blue Cross or Verizon. Those are days that can drive you crazy. They can be anger producing. Then it is hard to find joy in anything. Even the little things.

While customer support can be frustrating, angering, can I be grateful for the person on the other end of the phone who is truly trying to help? Can I be grateful to have people who are willing to go out of their way to help? Can I be grateful for the patience needed to resolve thorny issues? Can I be grateful for my husband who stuck with me through it?

And while customer support is frustrating, there are other events in life that are far worse. Can I be grateful when being given a cancer diagnosis? Can I be grateful if I lose a job? Can I be grateful if my partner chooses a different path or if my loved one dies?

People ask me if it is OK to be angry in Judaism. I tell them yes. You bet. Anger is OK in Judaism. Moses gets angry. G-d gets angry. The Psalmist gets angry. There is a place for anger. It helps to acknowledge those feelings too. Even to be grateful for anger.

Rabbi Chaim Stern, editor of Gates of Prayer, wrote this as a reading before Kaddish,

It is hard to sing of oneness when our world is not complete, when those who once brought wholeness to our live have gone, and nothing but memory can fill the emptiness their passing leaves behind . . . Yet no one is really alone; those who live no more echo still within our thoughts and words, and what they did is part of what we have become. We do best homage to our dead when we live our lives most fully, even in the shadow of our loss. For each of our lives is worth the live of the whole world: in each one is the breath of the Divine. In affirming God we affirm the worth of each one whose life, now ended, brought us closer to the source of life, in whose unity no one is alone and every life finds purpose.

It seems to me that is the challenge. To figure out how to sing when we want to scream. That process will eventually, maybe not today, bring us back to joy