Friday, May 04, 2012

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 256

Today's Daily 5:

  1. a day in the mountains
  2. hanging out all day with a friend from school and her puppies, in one of my favorite parts of the world
  3. happy baby news from a friend
  4. dinner with a different friend
  5. celebrating at the wedding shower for still another friend
It was a good day... full of people and laughter and fresh air and exercise and good food and joy.

Friday Reflections, May 4, 2012

Today's reflection is once again from Henri Nouwen, and reminds me of how valuable it is to ask questions, and not spend all of our time in answers, but to really honor the questions.


Question from Above

What are spiritual questions?  They are questions from above.  Most questions people ask of Jesus are questions from below, such as the question about which of  a woman's seven husbands she will be married to in the resurrection.   Jesus does not answer this question because it comes from a legalistic mind-set.  It is a question from below.

Often Jesus  responds by changing this question.  In the case of the woman with seven husbands he says, "At the resurrection men and women do not marry - have you never read what God himself said to you:  'I am God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob?'  He is God not of the dead but of the living" (Matthew 22:23-30).

We have to keep looking for the spiritual question if we want spiritual answers.

Thursday, May 03, 2012

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 255

Today's Daily 5:

  1. zoo trip
  2. penguins - there's something that's just so amazing about getting to watch a "new" (to our zoo) animal interact with the world... every time I encounter a new to me animal, I'm reminded all over again of Jesus' creativity
  3. quiet afternoon at home, resting
  4. listening to some new music my friend Karla wrote
  5. house church, Romans study, baby cuddles

Twice in One Week

This is the second time this week that I'm going to plead lack of structured schedule for a less than substantive blog post.

I was actually all set to write something great for this space today.  I listened to a sermon on the bus yesterday that spoke to a number of things surrounding body, self image, and other topics heavy on my mind, and I made notes as I listened and thought about the ways I was going to write out those ideas that have been floating.

And then I got a phone call that rearranged the entirety of my day yesterday.  Instead of having more than half the day at home to write and plan, I headed off to pain walls with all the ladies of the family at the house my brother's fiancee has just moved into - the home they'll share after their June wedding.  And then I went grocery shopping, and card shopping, and wedding and baby shower gift shopping.

That led to a discussion on facebook about the lack of quality cards available that don't look like something my grandma would pick out (and also don't look like bad floral upholstery threw up all over them!)

It also meant that I didn't get home last night until close to 9pm, at which point I still needed to eat supper, wash dishes, and tackle several important emails that I'd been studiously ignoring all day.

And, since I'm going to the zoo this morning to hang out with one of my closest friends, and her daughter, who is one of my favorite small people, I'm pleading the lack of a structured schedule, and not writing a fabulous long post about body image.  That will just have to wait until structure returns to my life, this time next week!

Wednesday, May 02, 2012

Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 254

Today's Daily 5:

  1. sleeping in
  2. found all of my textbooks for the coming semester available used (and significantly cheaper)
  3. managed a grocery shopping trip
  4. hung out with all the ladies of my family, painting at the suite my brother and his fiancee will be living in
  5. an unexpected confluence of events, but enjoying the things that ended up happening