Sunday, February 12, 2006

Clearing Up Some Head Space

Isn't that what blogging does sometimes? Clears up the old head so you can think about something else for a change? That is what it feels like today. Sometimes I feel like my hardrive is about full and needs some files deleted. I know, I know, that is what the garbage bin is for but sometimes that is what my blog is about too. Please feel free to root through it and take what you like and leave the rest.

Yesterday I was at my monthly Lay Formation Program - had the pleasure of listening to a Bishop do the teaching. What a wise and wonderfully human man. Good teaching on salvation. "There is no becoming without waiting." Much food for thought found among the notes I took.

Yesterday during morning prayer I got a call that my great uncle Bruce had passed away a few days ago. I came home one day early so I can travel part way today to where the funeral will be held tomorrow. I had only renewed acquaintances with this uncle about 7 or 8 years ago. Family was important to him and the fact that I was his sister's grandchild meant I was family forever and he treated me as such. He was crochety and funny. He was tender and tough. I will miss him. What I loved most about him was the way in which he loved my granny. I don't think she experienced a whole lot of love during her lifetime but he spoke of her with such tenderness that it surprised and touched me.

We are having what can only be described as spring weather today. I think the high is supposed to be +8C. The forecast though for later on in the week is a high of -27C. The joke is that winter is finally arriving here mid February. Many years winter starts at the end of October so there will be no complaining from me if it truly arrives this week.

I haven't taken the time to figure out how to post the books I am reading on my side bar but for now I'll leave you links to my current reads right here. The Spirituality of Imperfection is number one on the list this week. Next is Simply Sane and last is a fun read called A Round Heeled Woman.

Several years I have given up reading books for Lent. Not quite sure what Lent is going to look like for me this year. It is very hard to be honest about my motives for any of it. It is easy for it to sound so spiritual and yet be so empty. I have a hard time navigating through the waters of what I give up I can also benefit from the discipline of in a selfish way, so is that really what I should be doing? Trying to discern in my heart something that would prompt an inner reaction of "no blankety blank way am I giving that up' for Lent. Well, of course much of the time I don't want the journey, whatever the liturgical season, to cost me a thing.

Today is my 24th wedding anniversary. What can I say? Every year I say it has been the best year together and then within the next year comes pain and refinement in us both that seem to nearly cause a shipwreck. Good will. We have a spirit of good will towards one another that was not there on my wedding day and took 20 years to become reality. This past year I learned that a spirit of good will needed to come before everything else. It has helped me speak Truth more tenderly and go on the defense much, much less. I learned early in life to see the world through a grid of believing it was out to get me. Six years ago, after a nervous breakdown, I learned that my husband was not and never had been out to get me. That lie belonged entirely in my head. I told Father Charlie this week that it was a miracle that my dear husband had stuck with me to get to this place on the journey. Thanks for seeing me through a much more tender grid all these years dearest heart.

There, the hard drive is a bit emptier. Thanks for sorting through it with me.

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