I'm trying to decide what to say.
A few minutes ago I was chatting with my roommate J., and the words were tumbling over themselves in their rush to make an appearance.
But just at this moment I'm not certain how to phrase them.
It's been a busy few evenings.
Dinner last night with a dear friend who I only manage to connect with every few months. Such a blessing to laugh and cook together. To eat and talk and share life. There aren't many friends like that left in my life, and even fewer left here in the city, so time with her is always special.
And then tonight I reconnected with M. She's just returned from 8 months overseas. That connection was a bit weird. But it was fun in many ways to do some errands together and chat about the more mundane stuff of life.
And with those things said, I think I'm going to leave it here for tonight. I need to pray and journal and read for a bit before sleeping, and I need to try to be turning my lights out within the next hour or so.
Tomorrow is Friday! And then a long weekend. I'm ready for the break!
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Thoughts On Waking
Have I mentioned that discombobulated is one of my favorite words these days? It has that onomatopoeiac (I have to confess that I had to look up the spelling of onomatopoeia) quality that perfectly describes the way I'm feeling a lot of the time.
I fell asleep after praying about some issues with my family. Not a long intense prayer, just a one line "please continue healing" in the midst of some other journalled thoughts and prayers.
I woke from a vivid dream about another familial relationship, thinking, "oh, apparently there's healing needed there as well."
I slept off and on through the night. Not waking as many times as usual, or sleeping as much as I'd have liked.
This is one of those bleary eyed mornings. The alarm went, and I found myself more deeply drifting towards sleep than I was when I'd last woken nearly an hour before.
I stumbled through a morning routine, deciding not to cut a slice of a delicious pan of squares I baked last weekend. Now that I'm sitting in my office, I want nothing so much as that square for breakfast. Toast with peanut butter is just not going to satisfy in the same way.
I think I drove on auto pilot. I know this because I ended up in a lane I never take, forcing me to merge. I never take this lane because I hate merging. Merging requires me to use my left eye. I don't see well with my left eye, and I find merging a precarious prospect, requiring me to turn my head to see the lane I'm merging into, and thus not entirely be watching the lane in which I'm currently driving. But this morning, I was distracted by the audio book I was listening to, and by my own sleepy, discobobulated thoughts, and I ended up in the merge lane. I ended up thinking with great surprise "I never take this lane!"
I woke this morning, too, to discover that a book order I placed yesterday morning has been shipped. In full. No piece-meal shipping this time. Sometime in the next week or so I will take possession of four new books.
And with that, it's Thursday. I'm still bleary eyed and discombobulated. But I like Thursdays as a general rule. And this is one that is definitely going to require a cup of tea. And breakfast. So I'm off to the office kitchen to meet these needs of mine.
I fell asleep after praying about some issues with my family. Not a long intense prayer, just a one line "please continue healing" in the midst of some other journalled thoughts and prayers.
I woke from a vivid dream about another familial relationship, thinking, "oh, apparently there's healing needed there as well."
I slept off and on through the night. Not waking as many times as usual, or sleeping as much as I'd have liked.
This is one of those bleary eyed mornings. The alarm went, and I found myself more deeply drifting towards sleep than I was when I'd last woken nearly an hour before.
I stumbled through a morning routine, deciding not to cut a slice of a delicious pan of squares I baked last weekend. Now that I'm sitting in my office, I want nothing so much as that square for breakfast. Toast with peanut butter is just not going to satisfy in the same way.
I think I drove on auto pilot. I know this because I ended up in a lane I never take, forcing me to merge. I never take this lane because I hate merging. Merging requires me to use my left eye. I don't see well with my left eye, and I find merging a precarious prospect, requiring me to turn my head to see the lane I'm merging into, and thus not entirely be watching the lane in which I'm currently driving. But this morning, I was distracted by the audio book I was listening to, and by my own sleepy, discobobulated thoughts, and I ended up in the merge lane. I ended up thinking with great surprise "I never take this lane!"
I woke this morning, too, to discover that a book order I placed yesterday morning has been shipped. In full. No piece-meal shipping this time. Sometime in the next week or so I will take possession of four new books.
And with that, it's Thursday. I'm still bleary eyed and discombobulated. But I like Thursdays as a general rule. And this is one that is definitely going to require a cup of tea. And breakfast. So I'm off to the office kitchen to meet these needs of mine.
I liked this...
I liked this post at "Just Sally" this morning.
And really, who wouldn't like a quote that begins with a line from Grey's Anatomy? Because I'm firmly convinced there are so many nuggets of Jesus truth buried in some of the episodes of that show. Or maybe it's just that Jesus consistently speaks to me? Either way. I liked Sally's post.
And really, who wouldn't like a quote that begins with a line from Grey's Anatomy? Because I'm firmly convinced there are so many nuggets of Jesus truth buried in some of the episodes of that show. Or maybe it's just that Jesus consistently speaks to me? Either way. I liked Sally's post.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Wednesday Morning
I woke well before my alarm this morning.
But that was okay. Because, for the first time a week or so, I think I slept through the night. Well, without waking for at least four straight hours, possibly closer to six. There were still dreams, but they weren't the disturbing or unsettling sort. They weren't even the sort that I remembered.
Maybe it was the change of sheets on my bed.
Or just the timing of when I went to bed.
Or maybe it was that I took time to actually slow down and talk with Jesus for a little while last night before going to bed. To write in my journal, and pray through a verse of scripture that caught at me as I was reading.
Whatever it was, I didn't wake feeling too exhausted to move.
Don't get me wrong, I'm already yawning and feeling fatigued, but I slept, and I'm really grateful for that.
So, I'm praying that this will be a calm Wednesday.
I'm praying for a dear friend who is traveling today.
I'm looking forward to dinner and conversation and prayer with another friend tonight.
And I'm thankful for my new job, with lots of opportunity for variety and new challenges. With things that let me engage my brain.
But that was okay. Because, for the first time a week or so, I think I slept through the night. Well, without waking for at least four straight hours, possibly closer to six. There were still dreams, but they weren't the disturbing or unsettling sort. They weren't even the sort that I remembered.
Maybe it was the change of sheets on my bed.
Or just the timing of when I went to bed.
Or maybe it was that I took time to actually slow down and talk with Jesus for a little while last night before going to bed. To write in my journal, and pray through a verse of scripture that caught at me as I was reading.
Whatever it was, I didn't wake feeling too exhausted to move.
Don't get me wrong, I'm already yawning and feeling fatigued, but I slept, and I'm really grateful for that.
So, I'm praying that this will be a calm Wednesday.
I'm praying for a dear friend who is traveling today.
I'm looking forward to dinner and conversation and prayer with another friend tonight.
And I'm thankful for my new job, with lots of opportunity for variety and new challenges. With things that let me engage my brain.
The Cups of our Lives
several great inter-connected thoughts from Henri Nouwen...
The Cup of Life
When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22). "Can we drink the cup?" is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?
Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.
Holding the Cup
We all must hold the cups of our lives. As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life - personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene - everything within and around us conspires to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows. "Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it," we say to ourselves and hear others say to us. But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows.
Lifting the Cup
When we hold firm our cups of life, fully acknowledging their sorrows and joys, we will also be able to lift our cups in human solidarity. Lifting our cups means that we are not ashamed of what we are living, and this gesture encourages others to befriend their truths as we are trying to befriend ours. By lifting up our cups and saying to each other, "To life" or "To your health," we proclaim that we are willing to look truthfully at our lives together. Thus, we can become a community of people encouraging one another to fully drink the cups that have been given to us in the conviction that they will lead us to true fulfillment.
Drinking the Cup
After firmly holding the cups of our lives and lifting them up as signs of hope for others, we have to drink them. Drinking our cups means fully appropriating and interiorizing what each of has acknowledged as our life, with all its unique sorrows and joys.
How do we drink our cups? We drink them as we listen in silence to the truth of our lives, as we speak in trust with friends about ways we want to grow, and as we act in deeds of service. Drinking our cups is following freely and courageously God's call and staying faithfully on the path that is ours. Thus our life cups become the cups of salvation. When we have emptied them to the bottom, God will fill them with "water" for eternal life.
Emptiness and Fullness
Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.
We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same. When he had given all away to his Abba, his dear Father, he cried out, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). He who was lifted up on the cross was also lifted into the resurrection. He who had emptied and humbled himself was raised up and "given the name above all other names" (see Philippians 2:7-9). Let us keep listening to Jesus' question: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22).
The Cup of Life
When the mother of James and John asks Jesus to give her sons a special place in his Kingdom, Jesus responds, "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22). "Can we drink the cup?" is the most challenging and radical question we can ask ourselves. The cup is the cup of life, full of sorrows and joys. Can we hold our cups and claim them as our own? Can we lift our cups to offer blessings to others, and can we drink our cups to the bottom as cups that bring us salvation?
Keeping this question alive in us is one of the most demanding spiritual exercises we can practice.
Holding the Cup
We all must hold the cups of our lives. As we grow older and become more fully aware of the many sorrows of life - personal failures, family conflicts, disappointments in work and social life, and the many pains surrounding us on the national and international scene - everything within and around us conspires to make us ignore, avoid, suppress, or simply deny these sorrows. "Look at the sunny side of life and make the best of it," we say to ourselves and hear others say to us. But when we want to drink the cups of our lives, we need first to hold them, to fully acknowledge what we are living, trusting that by not avoiding but befriending our sorrows we will discover the true joy we are looking for right in the midst of our sorrows.
Lifting the Cup
When we hold firm our cups of life, fully acknowledging their sorrows and joys, we will also be able to lift our cups in human solidarity. Lifting our cups means that we are not ashamed of what we are living, and this gesture encourages others to befriend their truths as we are trying to befriend ours. By lifting up our cups and saying to each other, "To life" or "To your health," we proclaim that we are willing to look truthfully at our lives together. Thus, we can become a community of people encouraging one another to fully drink the cups that have been given to us in the conviction that they will lead us to true fulfillment.
Drinking the Cup
After firmly holding the cups of our lives and lifting them up as signs of hope for others, we have to drink them. Drinking our cups means fully appropriating and interiorizing what each of has acknowledged as our life, with all its unique sorrows and joys.
How do we drink our cups? We drink them as we listen in silence to the truth of our lives, as we speak in trust with friends about ways we want to grow, and as we act in deeds of service. Drinking our cups is following freely and courageously God's call and staying faithfully on the path that is ours. Thus our life cups become the cups of salvation. When we have emptied them to the bottom, God will fill them with "water" for eternal life.
Emptiness and Fullness
Emptiness and fullness at first seem complete opposites. But in the spiritual life they are not. In the spiritual life we find the fulfillment of our deepest desires by becoming empty for God.
We must empty the cups of our lives completely to be able to receive the fullness of life from God. Jesus lived this on the cross. The moment of complete emptiness and complete fullness become the same. When he had given all away to his Abba, his dear Father, he cried out, "It is fulfilled" (John 19:30). He who was lifted up on the cross was also lifted into the resurrection. He who had emptied and humbled himself was raised up and "given the name above all other names" (see Philippians 2:7-9). Let us keep listening to Jesus' question: "Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?" (Matthew 20:22).
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