Daily 5 - Day 103

This has been an incredibly discombobulating day. Work was gross, and is likely to stay that way all week, and maybe well into next week. The dreams from this morning are still lingering. Other thoughts and things read over the day are stirring or rankling just a little.

So, today's daily 5 or so:

1. I'm thankful that it was not my turn to make supper tonight.
2. I'm thankful for a yoga workout that helped burn off the stress of the day, and was followed by a hot shower.
3. I'm thankful that my usual weekly stop at the gas station went way more smoothly this week than last week.
4. I'm thankful that not all days are like this day was.
5. I'm thankful that I spent an hour out of the office this morning doing work errands, and left about 20 minutes early today to do another work errand. It was a helpful break in the midst of a terribly difficult day
6. I'm thankful for internet access in my home, and the ability to communicate with friends scattered around the world with ease.
7. I'm thankful that not all of the dreams are nearly as disturbing as last nights, and that some are quite beautiful.
8. I'm thankful for cranberry scented home fragrance oil from The Body Shop.
9. I'm thankful for friends who pray
10. I really enjoyed having a banana with peanut butter for breakfast.
    

Sin Boldly

Cover of Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace

Late last night, after slowly reading for a few weeks, and reading in giant gulps of thirst for grace while cocooned yesterday afternoon, I finished "Sin Boldly: A Field Guide for Grace" by Cathleen Falsani.

To be honest, I didn't know what to expect when I started reading this one. I bought it because I recognized the author's name from a radio interview I'd heard. But mostly I bought it because it looked vaguely interesting, and was on the clearance table at the local Christian bookstore with an additional 25% off the lowest price sticker pasted to the front cover. (I'm a sucker for a bargain, even when it comes to books - one of the few things I regularly pay full price for.)

I was pleasantly surprised.

Though by no means a brilliant work, the stories are beautiful, and Falsani has done an excellent job of portraying grace.

And for me, there was grace simply in the timing of reading this book. In needing those reminders of beauty and hope in the midst of a really challenging moment.

I underlined here and there (the mark of a book that is really grabbing my attention) - especially various quotes, and I'm sure that some of those will eventually appear here amidst all the other bits and pieces that make up my blog.

But for the moment let me just say I'm thankful for the hope and grace Falsani's book offered in the moments I needed it yesterday, and that if you love stories about real life and hope and joy and grace, written with a slightly humorous twist that doesn't take anything more seriously than necessary, than I heartily recommend this book to you as well.

Monday Morning

My day started with dreams of animals and attack. Not all that pleasant a way to enter a new week of work.

I'm feeling passionately opinionated about anything and everything today. Not that unusual, but this is one of those days where the words just might spill out of my mouth without much pause to consider the finer points audience reception.

It's going to be a crazy day and week at work. So I'm settling in, buckling down, and figuring out how to face it.

I do, at least, feel semi-restored for my afternoon of reading and cocooning yesterday. Thankful for the influx of at least a little bit of peace.

And the decision making I was going to do yesterday, so that it wasn't hanging over my head all week. Well, as I melted down and then cocooned and prayed, I realized that it wasn't going to work to force a decision, and I really don't have to know what I'm doing until the end of the week, so, I'm not going to see it as hanging over my head. I'm going to set it aside, except for in a few specific moments of prayer, and wait and see what comes.

It's Monday morning... on into the week!

Daily 5 - Day 102

This is the sort of day that I need to make these lists, and today there are some things that are really and truly making me smile amidst the pull of other pain...

1. The funny memory of using a wine bottle, still partially filled, as a rolling pin in a baking experiment that was ultimately a disaster. But it was fun to improvise for a rolling pin upon realizing that I don't own one. (And won't be rushing out to buy one since this was the first time in three years I've lived on my own and needed one!)
2. I'm grateful for some minor relational conflict today that reminded me that I do not need to fear that all relational conflict will end in the destruction of the relationship. I'm thankful for the reminder that it can be dealt with through conversation, a request for a boundary to be honored, and that we could then move on and continue to enjoy relationship.
3. I learned a new trick for dicing onions in the cooking class today. It was worth it for that alone. I hate chopping onions. I watched my mom's knife slip on the membrane of an onion once when I was a kid, and cut her finger very badly, and I've been a bit paranoid about knives, and particularly chopping onions ever since. I never chop onions into really small pieces for that reason, but I think, with the trick she showed us today, I might actually attempt it.
4. I'm thankful for wine poured out.
5. I'm thankful for other writers, who have used their gifts with words to encourage in the moments I can't find that encouragement for myself
6. I'm thankful for utilities that are included in our rent. I have memories of very short showers overseas because of the cost of water and heating that water, and on days like today when my muscles ache, I'm grateful for a shower that will stay warm as long as I stand under it, without costing me anything.
7. I'm thankful that one of the two cookie experiments I attempted today turned out. (Cooking is definitely more my forte than baking!)
   
8. I'm thankful for the testimonies of those being baptized at a church service last week that I'm watching via video online, and for the testimonies of healing from another service last week that I also watched online tonight. There is something deeply encouraging about people crying out to be made new, and others giving testimony to the works of God in their lives where man could do nothing.
9. I'm thankful for the prayers a friend wrote out and prayed over me by email this afternoon... for the tears that her words gave permission to fall... for the enforced stoppage and cocooning towards rest and restoration
10. I'm thankful for those of you who stop by from time to time and leave comments on the blog... they always make me smile, and remind me that there are so many other beautiful people journeying alongside, scattered around the country, continent and globe.
    

Cocooning

I am, at the present moment, and have been, for the last 3 hours or so, holed up in my bedroom.

I am cocooning.

It is warm, and dimly lit, only one small lamp (enough light to read by) and about a dozen or so tealights. It smells lovely in here, thanks to the oil burner and softly scented oils.

I'm in need of a little bit of metamorphosis today. And a lot of grace.

So I'm cocooning.

(Emerging, every so often, to finish tasks in the kitchen, but mostly cocooning.)

I have cried deeply.

And when the tears began to end, and peace to re-enter, made makeshift communion from the snack of mango juice and home-made pita chips that I'd collected before the storm began, in the moments when I thought I was going to spend my afternoon sorting my recipes into a more practical form, instead of curled up, searching for grace.

My heart is tired. Of myself at times, and the struggles to choose differently. And of some of the situations I've been part of that seem to go on and on and on.

And today my heart bears also the weight of things from this week. Of a friend's mom whose days are now marked by cancer. Of a boy who died too young. Of things that make me want to scream out "This is not how it was supposed to be."

This is not how it was supposed to be.

A dear friend prayed, and that helped.

Lighting candles helped too. A sacrament of sorts for me. It's rare, these days that they are all lit, scattered across the two "altar spaces" in my room, full of prayers and memories.

Cocooned. Wrapped, and warmed, and letting my heart be slowly transformed, drawn again to a place of grace and peace.

Those two words, grace and peace. I listened to a sermon recently that pointed out that these were some of the most common greetings in Paul's letters. Grace and peace to each of those churches to whom he wrote. Grace and peace to each of those who sits and reads those letters now.

I find myself in need of those today.

As my thoughts cleared and focus returned, I picked up the book I've been reading in little bits all week. Stories rather than definitions. A book that seeks to portray grace, a book that stirs the desire to hunt for it in the most unlikely of places.

Not so very different from the daily lists of 5 or 10 that I've been making for just over 100 days now. But more flowing, and encompassing the world, from the funeral of Pope John Paul II, to a slum in Kenya, to the room of a lovely Chicago nun named sister Annuziata. Stories that find life and hope.

I've needed those today. Those words that stir hope and joy in a heart that was only feeling their absence.

And stories like these make me grateful for my interminable habit of book buying. I bought this one ages ago because I recognized the author's name, and hey, it was on sale.

I only picked it up a week or two ago, and have been reading slowly.

And the book itself is a measure of grace. One that sat on my shelf until the urge came to read it. That internal nudge. But also the slow traverse through it, until this afternoon, when I needed to internalize, to read, to "eat" and be reminded of grace in large and sweeping portions.

The candles flicker off the various items scattered around my "altar"... pottery wine goblets, and gifts from a friend. An empty wine bottle, a cross formed from palm leaves, a plaque, a few stones, a remembrance day poppy or two, and a photo of myself, captured in the midst of a very deep moment. And as they flicker, and I sit in my cocoon, I am reminded that those moments, though many hold, in their own way, some measure of pain, also hold joy, and life. They hold grace and peace.

And tonight I'm thankful for the quietness of an empty house. For a cocoon, and for measures of grace, slowly restored, and transforming my heart again.