wordless

This week has been one of those ones again where the words just aren't there. Where the parts of me that are sometimes alive and bubbling over with creativity have been silent. Where the part of my soul that immediately begins the mental writing process whenever something the least bit intriguing catches my eye, has stubbornly refused to kick into gear.

I am still thinking about rescue. About a piece of a verse in Daniel chapter 3 that says "There is no other God who can rescue like this." I wrote a personal essay in my journal about this verse on the weekend, and if I ever get around to typing and revising it, it might appear here. I feel like rescue and healing (and sometimes, to be honest, they're synonymous in my head) are things that I am crying out to Jesus so desperately for over various things and situations. Sometimes that desperation for rescue and healing in my own life and in the lives of friends spills into my conversations, and that has created one or two intense and occasionally awkward moments this week.

I am thinking that sometimes I'm far too practical for my own good. That the things I think about are far too grounded in reality. A few months ago someone was describing his personality a bit to me, as a precursor to answering a question I'd asked him. He told me that he was going to answer from his head, and that if I asked a different friend, the answer would be totally different. In the course of describing that to me, he said, "I'm not a mystic like you and so and so and so and so," naming a few other friends. I didn't really respond - no one had called me a mystic before - but all I was thinking was, "I live in my head WAY too much of the time to ever have the term 'mystic' accurately applied to me."

In the spirit of that practicality, I really appreciated this blog post that I came across late last week. I found myself greatly encouraged by the author's practicality, and by her take on the question Mary asked, "How will this be, since I'm a virgin?"

And with that, I'm going to take the very practical step of washing dishes, and then maybe lying in a hot bath for a while.

I'm tired. I've had my lights out by 11pm two nights in a row this week, and I think tonight may well be the third. I can't remember the last time that happened. Now, if I could just manage to sleep deeply and without dreams.

Later!

Tuesday Morning

There are several things I'm randomly thinking about this morning, that I'll probably eventually explore here further:

• the idea of rescue - I wrote a personal essay on this topic Sunday afternoon...
• that walmart at Christmas, even late at night, when it should be slow, is always a bad idea. I was there for 40 minutes last night. 20 minutes of that was standing in line to pay. And they didn't have most of what I needed to buy.
• 11 work days left before Malta. Crazy.
• if I lived in a city with great public transportation and a good climate (does such a city exist?) I'd wear skirts year round, and never drive anywhere again. Walking is very therapeutic.
• as per usual for this time of year at work, there are dozens of little projects on my desk, all urgent, and all being delayed by the slow response times of others, and I'm feeling the pressure to get them done before Christmas, and particularly before Malta.
• I'm having dinner with a friend tonight, but am looking forward to being home relatively early for a change.
• tea is almost always a good idea
• need to make decisions about a couple of upcoming things. things that make me nervous. need to spend some time sitting quietly in the next few days praying through those decisions.
• need some slow time for my brain to catch up to my body and soul - I'm dreaming every night again, the same dream for a whole night, in repetition, with different dreams every night. Not the spiritually significant sort of dreams that I sometimes have, but lots about the stuff of daily life, the stuff I'm thinking about. And lots of airports. Air travel seems to be a theme in my dreams - in the significant ones and the non-significant ones.
• mandarin oranges are a gift of god. even though I'm allergic to them, and they make my skin hyper-sensitive and hyper-reactive. How can you have Christmas without mandarins?
• the phones at work rang off the hook yesterday. Renewal season in progress, and grumpy policy holders and representatives are calling to tell us what we're doing wrong!
• and with that, there are things on my desk that rather desperately need attention, but first, I need to make a cup of tea!

See ya later!