Self-Care...

It's been a longish week.

Lots of things going on personally and professionally.

I knew this would be the sort of Friday night where I'd need to treat myself gently.

To ease myself into a time of prayer and writing.

So I made plans to care for myself.

I picked up dinner - take out, but healthy take-out.

I shopped for a while. Bought some products for self-pampering.

And then I came home.

I caught up on a favorite television show online.

I filed and buffed and shined and painted my fingernails. And then repeated the process with my toenails.

I put a warming masque on my face, and relaxed in the bathtub for a while.

I shaved my legs, and slathered them with lovely scented cream.

I moisturized my face with more care and nicer products than usual.

I took a long shower and washed my hair.

I put on perfume.

And now I'm resting. Slowly settling into a space where my heart (which has, in some ways been praying all evening) can enter into communion with Jesus. Where I can read and find words to write some of the things that Jesus and I have been talking about in the last day or two. Where my heart can focus inward, and I can let myself be held and loved and treated gently by Jesus.

Goodnight.

In the News...

Some headlines catching my attention today...

Judge's Report Calls for Sweeping Changes to NB Mental Health System

Doodling Helps You Pay Attention

Asia Braces for Spike in Suicides Due to Economic Woes

UN Genocide Court Jails Rwandan Priest for 25 Years

Creating Space for God.

another thought from Henri Nouwen. This one was hard on my heart (in a good way). Discipline is not a word I like very much. It has all sorts of negative connotations from growing up. It was one of my dad's favorite words, and sometimes it felt like it was being used as a weapon, as a means of creating shame. I've revisted that word this last year, trying to establish a rhythm and discipline in certain areas of my life, and asking Jesus to restore his meaning to the word. It's helping a little.

Creating Space for God

Discipline is the other side of discipleship. Discipleship without discipline is like waiting to run in the marathon without ever practicing. Discipline without discipleship is like always practicing for the marathon but never participating. It is important, however, to realize that discipline in the spiritual life is not the same as discipline in sports. Discipline in sports is the concentrated effort to master the body so that it can obey the mind better. Discipline in the spiritual life is the concentrated effort to create the space and time where God can become our master and where we can respond freely to God's guidance.

Thus, discipline is the creation of boundaries that keep time and space open for God. Solitude requires discipline, worship requires discipline, caring for others requires discipline. They all ask us to set apart a time and a place where God's gracious presence can be acknowledged and responded to.

Lent. Morning. Day 2.

I've sorted out, at least a little what my observance of Lent will look like for this year. What things will be added, and what will go. I know from experience that that will shift and change as the season moves and deepens.

I marked Ash Wednesday in my own quiet, private way late last evening. A simple but deep time of prayer. The mixing of incense and oil. Wrapped in a shawl that has come to symbolize those deeper moments of prayer. Lifting my own heart and lenten season and the hearts and seasons of those I love before the Savior who increasingly owns my heart.

Deep cold and snow have set in again this week, feeling somewhat oddly appropriate for this season in the church calendar. Yesterday was a particularly grey and gloomy day, oddly appropriate for a day celebrated with ashes. It was -36C with windchill factored in here this morning. And snowing.

But there is somehow hope in the midst of that. Both of the last two days, as I've brushed the snow off of George in the greyness of semi-dawn, in the bitter cold, I've noticed the song of some intrepid sparrows and chickadees singing in the trees that line my street. Calling out about warmer times coming. About spring and new life.

I told a friend last night that while I'd dreaded the deepening arrival of Lent this year, with it's coming, my heart was somehow ready. Ready for the season. Praying for change and restoration and freedom. That somehow, overnight, between Shrove Tuesday, and Ash Wednesday, Jesus moved in my heart, and replaced dread with a peaceful, purposeful acceptance. That though I'd worried that I hadn't yet heard from him how to observe the Lenten season this year, he spoke quietly to my heart and made it clear through the day yesterday.

I wonder sometimes if I don't waste a lot of time worrying about what is ahead when it seems so clear that right now Jesus usually waits until just the moment of necessity to speak his clarity and direction into a situation.

I suppose it ties back to the quote from Teresa of Avila that I shared last night, and the lyrics from dcTalk that I shared this morning.

"I'm learning to give up the rights to myself." Right now that means the right to know what is coming. The right to understand. The right to see much beyond the moment in which I am existing. It means learning to trust in a radical new way. A way that is painful and stretching.

As I said yesterday, I'm committed to waiting and fasting and praying and listening and letting my heart be changed.

Still Thinking About Teresa (Giving up the rights to myself)

I was still thinking about the quote I shared last night from Teresa of Avila as I was driving to work this morning, and a song lyric from when I was a teenager came to mind in relation to that. Nothing like some old school dcTalk, but I've always loved the following lines, and they are speaking the same thing to my heart that the quote from Teresa was.

I'm learning to give up the rights to myself.
The bits and the pieces I've gathered as wealth
Could never compare to the joy that you bring me.
The peace that you show me is the strength that I need.
(From "My Will" by dcTalk)