Unstable Ground

It's been a quiet evening.

Finally.

I've needed one all week.

I've been exhausted and I was starting to see the strain show up physically again.

So I declared tonight to be a night about resting. And restoration.

I took a bath, and watched a dvd in the tub. I pampered myself with a blue corn face mask, and coconut body scrub (both from The Body Shop).

I putzed around on the computer for awhile, playing a game, doing the facebook thing, avoiding what I really needed to do.

What I really needed to do was spend some time with my journal. It's been a full week, and there's lots to process, but there was one specific thing on my mind that I needed to write out.

I finally quit avoiding and wrote it out, and as usual, when I've been avoiding something, the direction it ended up taking me was surprising.

I ended up back at unstable ground.

It's kind of been a theme for the last year and a bit.

It stems from a deeply personal moment in a field on another continent. A story that doesn't fit here just yet. A share over tea or in an email or phone call with a friend kind of story. A dreams coming alive sort of moment.

And it's repeated ever since, in the oddest of moments.

There is something about standing on unstable ground.

Literally and figuratively.

And learning to trust amidst the instability.

Being able to open my hands, or willing to kneel - to let myself fall to my knees.

To say, "even this on which I depend, I offer back to You and choose to trust You with."

I'm not very good at it. But I'm learning. Through repetition. And lots of falling and failing.

But maybe, sometimes, that's the best way to learn. And falling seems to come with the territory when you're dealing with unstable ground.

And so, even in this, I choose to trust.

Henri on writing

I'm sure I've probably posted these before at some point, but I love these thoughts from Henri Nouwen on the value of writing, and thought I'd share them again.

Writing to Save the Day

Writing can be a true spiritual discipline. Writing can help us to concentrate, to get in touch with the deeper stirrings of our hearts, to clarify our minds, to process confusing emotions, to reflect on our experiences, to give artistic expression to what we are living, and to store significant events in our memories. Writing can also be good for others who might read what we write.

Quite often a difficult, painful, or frustrating day can be "redeemed" by writing about it. By writing we can claim what we have lived and thus integrate it more fully into our journeys. Then writing can become lifesaving for us and sometimes for others too.

Writing, Opening a Deep Well

Writing is not just jotting down ideas. Often we say: "I don't know what to write. I have no thoughts worth writing down." But much good writing emerges from the process of writing itself. As we simply sit down in front of a sheet of paper and start to express in words what is on our minds or in our hearts, new ideas emerge, ideas that can surprise us and lead us to inner places we hardly knew were there.

One of the most satisfying aspects of writing is that it can open in us deep wells of hidden treasures that are beautiful for us as well as for others to see.

Making Our Lives Available to Others

One of the arguments we often use for not writing is this: "I have nothing original to say. Whatever I might say, someone else has already said it, and better than I will ever be able to." This, however, is not a good argument for not writing. Each human person is unique and original, and nobody has lived what we have lived. Furthermore, what we have lived, we have lived not just for ourselves but for others as well. Writing can be a very creative and invigorating way to make our lives available to ourselves and to others.

We have to trust that our stories deserve to be told. We may discover that the better we tell our stories the better we will want to live them.

In the grand scheme of things...

For a Wednesday, this wasn't too bad.

I did, however, hit my introvert, complete and total people over-saturation point around 6:00 or so tonight. Unfortunately, at the time I was in the middle of grocery shopping with my roommate in a mega-warehouse grocery store that I hate, but shop at anyway for the much more affordable prices.

So, after we came home and cooked dinner together, I exercised my introvert's right to retreat, and I've been holed up in my bedroom for the last hour and a bit, catching up on emails, watching an episode of a television show on DVD, and just generally reclining and enjoying being alone.

In a few minutes I'll emerge for my weekly fix of mocking the cattyness so openly displayed on America's Next Top Model, and then I'll go to bed, and we'll start over again tomorrow!

But tomorrow is Thursday, and I generally like Thursdays!

Maybe just enough for today...

The following quote appeared when I flipped the page of my calendar of quotes from women saints this morning.

"The grace of even wishing to belong to God must come from himself." (Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton)

I've been thinking a lot about grace, and the things that contrast with it this week.

This quote is oddly encouraging to me this morning. Even the desire to belong to Jesus is a gift of grace.

That just might be enough to hold on to today.

Not Ready for Wednesday

"It's Wednesday."

That was my first thought on waking this morning.

Those of you who show up here regularly know that Wednesday's can be a bit wild in my life. There doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason for it. Some people have Monday's, I have Wednesday's.

I never actually have expected "gross" things on my schedule on Wednesday, they just seem to happen. And, to be fair, sometimes Wednesdays are actually okay. But the norm lately has been the sort of days where I wrestle through to the end.

"I'm not up to a Wednesday." was my second thought on waking this morning, as I rolled over to check emails and begin the day.

Monday and Tuesday were unusually full and intense this week, leaving me with much to process and the desperate need to spend time curled up with the journal I so carefully decorated on the weekend, and write for quite a while.

I was catching up with my roommate this morning as I drove her to the train, and listed just some of the conversations and things that have come up in the last two days. Because she knows me well, she understood quickly how challenging many of those things would have been.

Today promises to be full and busy as well. At work, and otherwise.

My roommate and I will get home later than usual tonight as we're going grocery shopping right after work.

I'm promising myself mindless TV time tonight. It's Wednesday, and that means I can laugh at the catty ridiculousness of America's Next Top Model. Assuming that I don't decide that time with a journal is more important.