Daily 5 - Day 90

I have this friend who loves the number 9. Because of her, I always think reaching milestones like 90 days of showing up here and making a list of things I'm grateful for, or basically any milestone with a 9 in it, are good ones!

So, here's today's Daily 5 (or more):

1. Talking on skype (even with some technical difficulties) for about an hour with A. tonight, and having time to pray together as well
2. A nice quiet day at work
3. Listening to some good preaching while I signed Christmas cards at my desk for an hour or two this afternoon
4. A grocery shopping trip that was relatively calm (something I actually prayed would be true in the time I lay awake before rising this morning)
5. Another night of getting yoga done (2 more days left in this 4 day exercise cycle)
6. getting to turn off my alarm for tomorrow morning, since tomorrow is a holiday for me
7. shared humor with a friend
8. home made cookies from the weekend
9. pizza for dinner, and leftover pizza for a later night blogging snack
10. reaching ninety days of showing up and writing a list like this of things I'm grateful for, or things that are making me smile.
    

Fond Childhood Reading Memories - the Giant Pink Sea Snail...

Did you ever read the Dr. Dolittle books? Not the Eddy Murphy modernized movie versions, but the classic children's books set in England? I read them all as a child, and loved each and every one of them. There was something fascinating to me about the round little doctor who used to doctor humans, before he learned to speak various animal languages and found doctoring animals to be so much better work.

I was thinking about those books just now, because a favorite scene popped into my head.

I have no idea what stirred the memory, but I was thinking about the scene where Dr. Dolittle and his entourage are ferried beneath the sea by the giant pink sea snail. The details are blurry in my head, but I remember being fascinated by the idea of this snail, and traveling safely to the other side of the sea within it's shell. There is this image of warm and cozy pinkness engrained in my memory, imparted somehow as I read.

A funny, fond memory to rest in this afternoon as I sit at my desk puttering. Childhood reading has left me with such fond memories, and it's always fun when a particularly fond, if somewhat random one such as this springs to mind. Especially since one usually leads to another... As a voracious reader that read close to 200 books some years as a child, there are so many fond memories of escaping into various literary worlds. (I'm already pondering Pippy Longstocking memories, and others from there...)

3 From Henri

A variety of thoughts from Henri Nouwen's writings that have arrived in my email inbox over the last while.

The Garden of the Saints

The Church is a very human organization but also the garden of God's grace. It is a place where great sanctity keeps blooming. Saints are people who make the living Christ visible to us in a special way. Some saints have given their lives in the service of Christ and his Church; others have spoken and written words that keep nurturing us; some have lived heroically in difficult situations; others have remained hidden in quiet lives of prayer and meditation; some were prophetic voices calling for renewal; others were spiritual strategists setting up large organizations or networks of people; some were healthy and strong; others were quite sick, and often anxious and insecure.

But all of them in their own ways lived in the Church as in a garden where they heard the voice calling them the Beloved and where they found the courage to make Jesus the center of their lives.

The Weakest in the Center

The most honored parts of the body are not the head or the hands, which lead and control. The most important parts are the least presentable parts. That's the mystery of the Church. As a people called out of oppression to freedom, we must recognize that it is the weakest among us - the elderly, the small children, the handicapped, the mentally ill, the hungry and sick - who form the real center. Paul says, "It is the parts of the body which we consider least dignified, that we surround with the greatest dignity" (1 Corinthians 12:23).

The Church as the people of God can truly embody of the living Christ among us only when the poor remain its most treasured part. Care for the poor, therefore, is much more than Christian charity. It is the essence of being the body of Christ.

The Communion of Saints

We often limit the Church to the organisation of people who identify themselves clearly as its members. But the Church as all people belonging to Christ, as that body of witnesses who reveal the living Christ, reaches far beyond the boundaries of any human institution. As Jesus himself said: The Spirit "blows where it pleases" (John 3:8). The Spirit of Jesus can touch hearts wherever it wants; it is not restrained by any human limits.

There is a communion of saints witnessing to the risen Christ that reaches to the far ends of the world and even farther. It embraces people from long ago and far away. It is that immense community of men and women who through words and deeds have proclaimed and are proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus.

30

Today is my parent's 30th wedding anniversary. Sort of a big milestone. If I know them, they'll go out together tonight to celebrate.

I'm grateful today for parents that have modeled love and commitment to each other through some really hard times. That they have stuck together and grown to know and love each other more.

And I'm grateful for the myriad of little ways that they share that love with my brothers and I as well.

One of the greeting cards I made last night on my brief creative spree was for mom and dad. I'll deliver it tomorrow when I'm at their house for some other appointments.

In the meantime, though, congratulations, Mom and Dad, on 30 years!