I sit here tonight wondering. Where am I headed next?
Archives for March 2011
At Sixes and Sevens…
Red Writing Hood: Pink with Red Sprinkles
The assignment this week is to respond to a picture, fiction or non-fiction, in 600 words. The picture? A scrumptious looking donut, one of many, slathered with pink frosting, dotted with red sprinkles:
Remarkable Faith: Reflections on a Funeral…
5 Minute Friday: Waking Up…
Remarkable Faith: Reflections on a Wedding…
The RedDress Club: Red Writing Hood – Detour
5 Minute Friday – Waiting…
This is the place where once a week we take the chance to
just write, and not worry if it’s just right or not.
For five minutes flat.
Here’s how the game works: you simply stop, drop and write. Set your words free. Don’t edit them, don’t fret over them, don’t try to make them perfect.
That’s how Five Minute Friday was born. Want to play? It’s fun. And it’s never too late to link up.
1. Write for only five minutes.
2. Link back here and invite others to play along.
3. Go high five the word artist who linked up before you with an awesome comment.
Begin:
Seems to me that life is one long series of waitings:
We wait to be born…
We wait to be fed…
We wait to be comforted…
We wait for our muscles to catch up to our vision so that we can begin to manipulate our world…
We wait to be asked to play…
We wait to go to school…
We wait to learn as much as we can learn, some of it easy for us, some of it very hard indeed…
We wait for recess…
We wait for home…
We wait for meals…
We wait for friends to come and play…
We wait for daylight savings time and the extra warmth and light…
We wait for summer vacation…
We wait for the end of summer vacation!
We wait to graduate to the next grade…
….or the next school…
We wait to be kissed…
We wait to fall in love…
….to marry…
…to have children…
We wait for those children to do and learn all those things we did and learned…
We wait for answers to hard questions…
We wait for life to get easier…
We wait for good health to return…
We wait for the end of a loved one’s suffering…
We wait for mercy…
We wait for Jesus.
STOP
Monday musings…
It’s a lovely place, Lord. And so nearby, too. Close to the mission – which I love – and close to the foothills – which I also love. Not too far from the beach, either. And not too far from home. Home, of course, being what I love most of all. But is it the right place, the one for me at this point in time? Is this where I’m headed next? I’m in a period of stepping back just now, you see, a time for reflecting, gathering resources – both internal and external – and deciding which way the road is turning as I step out into this strange, new territory called ‘retirement.’
Sunday Surprises
A little bit different Ash Wednesday…
Last year, I ordered this beautiful wooden labyrinth style Advent and Lenten worship aid from a young man in Canada. His mother writes a beautiful blog, which I began following shortly before my retirement and last year at about this time, she began posting beautiful photos of her son’s work and I thought it would be a great ministry tool. When it arrived, I kept it out for a long time, enjoying it’s simple beauty (two pieces of the spiral come off to make a 24-candle-hole Advent ‘path.’) But I didn’t use it at church. I carefully put it away with my fine china and enjoyed knowing that it was there.
For whatever reason, Dick and I have gotten into the weird habit of keeping the TV on during dinner – usually tuned to the PBS Newshour (or Jeopardy, if it’s a later dinner!). So for Lent this year, I offered the suggestion that we give that up, replacing the noise with candlelight, brief devotions and discussion. Dick thought that was a good idea – so that’s what we did.
This may be a scandalous thing to admit in such a public forum, but we’ve never been big on family devotions in our house. We’ve done them from time to time, when the kids were younger, and we certainly made a huge point to be together for as many meals as possible while our children were growing, we prayed together over the food and we talked easily and openly about matters of faith. We memorized scripture together, we did service projects together, we taught our children to come to God with thanksgiving and concerns from an early age. But my husband grew up in a home with mandatory morning devotions – and he hated it. And he made it clear very early on that he was not interested in repeating that pattern. So we didn’t. We found our own way, we talked a lot, we explored our faith together and we have enjoyed finding ways of making that faith real in the context of home, work and world.
But this is the first time in a long time that we’ve had any real structure to that – and so far (one week in!) we’re liking it a lot. I missed having the mark of the ashes on my head – and more than that, I missed being one of the persons who imposed that mark on others, offering the wonderful words: “You are but dust and ashes. Repent and believe the gospel.” But I was glad and grateful to be in our home, really looking at each other over dinner by candlelight, and sharing together briefly from the Word and from life. A different Ash Wednesday. But a good one.