The puppy sleeps next to me; the pool is being refilled. It's relatively cooler today than usual from storms. Which I love, because the heat can suck it. Yesterday I spent the day cleaning out a craft supply room for church and discussing my new THREE'S classroom, which is going to be completely overhauled before I start in Sept. Which is a good thing: currently, think dingy white paint, old awful yellow trim, out-of-date circus curtains. Lots of clutter. It will be: no curtains, all white trim, wall color TBD. And organized however we say, at least in accordance to the Big Honking Manual I also took home yesterday. Which is simultaneously completely overwhelming to the point of maniacal laughter - all these nitpicky regulations to establish "quality!" Geez. But also kind of helpful to someone such as myself starting completely from scratch. It's a giant Book O' Parameters, with which I can totally deal. And welcome in a lot of ways, because a direction is good, very very good. And later when I've gotten a handle on it all, I'll totally mock its nitpickiness as begged.
I don't know if you're still mad at me, or wounded, or _____. I will say that intent is completely important to me and shouldn't be disregarded. Certainly you must express your hurt feelings and so you have. I take listening prayer and your practice of it seriously enough that I wouldn't pretend to love it or connect with it just to spare your feelings. I appreciate the freedom to not love something and express that, too. My apologies if that manner of expression was hurtful, although it was more a self-mockery or commentary on my own lack of connection. But maybe too flip. I will also put out there as an intending-to-be objective observation that with ministry, perhaps it's important to meet a person on their level, considering personal style, personality type, etc. There is the element of challenging a person to stretch themselves, too. But then, how fine a line is that, particularly when the person is already stretched to the point of snapping anyminutenow. I know you're looking at a different side of the elephant and seeing your own version of truth while I see mine. Maybe yours is more about sharing and opening up when mine is that it's shutting me down. I suppose we either inch toward each other's truths to at least see what the other sees, or we move on to a different creature.
Like books. Did I dust you? When I posted notes for chapter 3, it wasn't to leave anyone out; I sort of just did it to do it and figured there'd be email catchup whenever each person had finished the chapter. Kind of like when we watch ProRun and say okay - read this email full of my commentary after you've watched, too.
Anyway I'm glad it's a Friday with nowhere to be. Tomorrow, earring shopping with K.Lo, who is at her milestone 6 weeks. And an oil change, yawn. Monday, some travel. Which I suppose means Sunday, some packing. Oof. But onto the most pressing item du jour, which is cleaning up the disaster pit down the hall, also known as K.Lo's room.
xoxox
10 comments:
It appears to be all quiet on the western front.
i'm half done in the heat and am lacking words, but for now bruckner, here is this:
West Wind, by Mary Oliver
Have you ever tried to enter the long black branches of other lives --
tried to imagine what the crisp fringes, full of honey, hanging
from the branches of the young locust trees, in early morning, feel like?
Do you think this world was only an entertainment for you?
Never to enter the sea and notice how the water divides
with perfect courtesy, to let you in!
Never to lie down on the grass, as though you were the grass!
Never to leap to the air as you open your wings over the dark acorn of your heart!
No wonder we hear, in your mournful voice, the complaint
that something is missing from your life!
Who can open the door who does not reach for the latch?
Who can travel the miles who does not put one foot
in front of the other, all attentive to what presents itself
continually?
Who will behold the inner chamber who has not observed
with admiration, even with rapture, the outer stone?
Well, there is time left --
fields everywhere invite you into them.
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away
from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Quickly, then, get up, put on your coat, leave your desk!
To put one's foot into the door of the grass, which is
the mystery, which is death as well as life, and
not be afraid!
To set one's foot in the door of death, and be overcome
with amazement!
To sit down in front of the weeds, and imagine
god the ten-fingered, sailing out of his house of straw,
nodding this way and that way, to the flowers of the
present hour,
to the song falling out of the mockingbird's pink mouth,
to the tippets of the honeysuckle, that have opened
in the night
To sit down, like a weed among weeds, and rustle in the wind!
Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?
While the soul, after all, is only a window,
and the opening of the window no more difficult
than the wakening from a little sleep.
Only last week I went out among the thorns and said
to the wild roses:
deny me not,
but suffer my devotion.
Then, all afternoon, I sat among them. Maybe
I even heard a curl or tow of music, damp and rouge red,
hurrying from their stubby buds, from their delicate watery bodies.
For how long will you continue to listen to those dark shouters,
caution and prudence?
Fall in! Fall in!
A woman standing in the weeds.
A small boat flounders in the deep waves, and what's coming next
is coming with its own heave and grace.
Meanwhile, once in a while, I have chanced, among the quick things,
upon the immutable.
What more could one ask?
And I would touch the faces of the daises,
and I would bow down
to think about it.
That was then, which hasn't ended yet.
Now the sun begins to swing down. Under the peach-light,
I cross the fields and the dunes, I follow the ocean's edge.
I climb, I backtrack.
I float.
I ramble my way home.
You do realize I am a common simpleton with no spiritual or intellectual depth :) I only wish I could extract meaning from poetry!
I'm no good at poetry either...is she saying our lives aren't deep enough? That's what I took away. I'll have to ponder more deeply as I gaze out across the ocean today.
it wasn't meant to be a riddle. it's simply beautiful. though i will say i really don't have a sense of humor at the moment and i'm having a hard time taking this unrelenting flippancy self deprecating or no.
and that if someones feelings are hurt the nonsarcastic, non-justifying-just- get- over- it-not treating me like i'm your child- response would be, "i'm sorry i hurt your feelings." and then someone in return might say "thank you." and then as friends there would be a hug and a smiley face at the end of the tunnel. the rest really just fuels further argument in my heart and is not the point.
so i'm over it, i'm giving it up, and we can move on with our separate truth or different languages or whatever it is we seem to be cross speaking over to one another of non understanding. i feel i'm tangled in some sort of web and i'm getting a headache and every back and forth just seems to make it worse.
so i know you didn't mean anything by it. i'm sorry it hurt my feelings and made me upset. i know your intentions werent anything other than communicating your truth. i'm sorry your truth hurt my feelings and that i'm taxing an already taxed person by overreacting.
let's just move on then.
I think I crossed over into flip after feeling my attempt at sincere communication and apology was either disregarded or deemed not good enough as the offense was further rehashed. In my taxed state it feels like yet another catalogued fail of my not living up to the friendship. But yeah, quickly losing whatever sense of humor i did have and let's move on.
i'm sorry.
I'm sorry, too.
How absolutely heartwarming!
I had a feeling there would be progress in the peace talks. I had that feeling because I held a seance about this last night.
oh dear.
bruckner what did i tell you about communicating with evil! truthtellers they sometimes may be but deceivers ALWAYS.
(it is heartwarming though.)
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