Monthly Archives: July 2007

It is good to be home.

But it is so crazy hot in this house that I am not sure if I can sleep.

I wrote something in my journal last night about the time of this week.  Something to the effect of, "time has passed this week in ways that seem disconnected to the clock.  It has passed like a flash and yet it has stood still."

It has been a week! 

Summer intensive is an apt description of this kind of study.  It has been time intensive as well as spiritually intensive.  I am coming out of this week changed.  You may not notice it and then again you may notice it more than I do. 

Becoming a spiritual director…  It is like having a "gut renovation" as one of my classmates put it. 

Now off to morning prayers.  Wonder what room in me God is going to work on today.

Today started off with my presenting /leading the goup in our morning prayer on the theme of my study project of Women and Spirituality.  It represented a big part of the personal journey I have taken this past year.  Good to share.  Lots of feelings of anxiety in getting up to do it.  Amazed at people’s responses to it.

There are times when  God has been present in the preparation, he is there in the moment of presentation and he comes in the form of those around me after.  Or maybe I should say "She" was there – like a mother encouraging her child with her homework.

Anyway, it has been a day of spiritual direction practice.  Some goes easily, other bits seem hard.  Listening really intently for the voice of God is tiring work – especially at the end when we are listening to the instructor sum up how things went.  Sometimes it seems easier to lean into the  parts of me where my gifts lie.  I know that if I do this I need to be un-busy, untired. 

O, life, slow down. 

Here I am in the middle of the day – university computer.  The course is so rich.  It is good in ways I hadn’t even imagined.  The course stretches me but it is a good stretching and so far it seems like exactly where I should be right now.

It is, by the way, my 37th wedding anniversary today.  What a life Leo and I have spent together.  I do wish I could celebrate with him near, but… that won’t happen this year and seems unlikely to happen again next year  – unless of course he comes down here.  Something we are seriously considering. 

So Happy Anniversary , Honey.  Love you too much to tell here.

Access to the internet at my office has been down for about two weeks now.  We had some electrical flikers and after that, no more internet.  We have tried resetting our modem connection with no success.  Our wireless router seems to be working just fine since I can still access the office printer. 

Any suggestions?  The SaskTel people say our modem is working fine but I don’t know.  If so why doesn’t it work?

In a way it has been good for me not to access the internet.  I do tend to spend more time on it than I need to .  When I should be doing other things it becomes a diversion that drwas me away from things I need to do.  I have been returning to my office at night to work there since it forces me to put aside those types of distracctions. 

I am getting things ready for the second summer intensive for the course I am in and working in an air conditionned place with no internet has been just right.  Last night I finished up my preparations for leading one of the prayer services to be held that week.  And I am halfway through the second book I need to read.  Tonight, I will go back over the questions I answered on another book and finish getting that ready.  There seems to me to be more to get ready this time that last year but I think it is just that this year other things have made me busy at the same time as the class preparations have been due.

I may post the liturgy I just finished preparing but I will wait till I lead it – that will just be next week.

Really they have not been quite as action packed as the TV show but it has been enough for me.

Last night I finally succeeded in finding some wasp spray.  We discovered – quite by accident that we ahd a nest very close to the barbeque.  Couldn’t just leave them there and have one of our guests tonight lean up against that part of the fence could we?  So at ten minutes to ten last night I was running around from store to store on the hunt for wasp spray.  Got some and annihilated the beasts. 

Got up a bit earlyish to go over my sermon.  Yeah, I was preachin today.  It went well and I wasn’t too scared.  I was really only speaking to friends but they do seem a long way away and distant in another subtle way when you are looking down at them from behind a pulpit. 

You might ask – why stand behind the pulpit, why not just speak more casually to the group?  Wher on earth do you put your notes if you have no pulpit?  And what do you hang onto?

Actually, it was good to do this.  God and I worked on this together over the past three weeks and it came together better than I had ever anticipated.

Then after church, while the guys went off to play golf, I took Auntie Florence for lunch.  We had a good time.  I think she likes to get out and although the conversation is a bit repetitious, it was a good time.

Home again, I began to get ready for my guests.  Marinaded the steaks, got the vegies ready, etc.  Last minute tidying, etc.

Then wrapped up the day with a great visit.

Don’t think I could have packed more into the last 24 hours if I had been Jack.  And no bomb threats or nuclear strikes either!

Things are moving around here.  Grace has decided to give living away from Mom and Dad a try.  So she is in the process of packing stuff up and moving.  She’s not going far – a few blocks in distance.  But the move is probably more significant psychologically.

At least for me.

My grandson is leaving us!  What will we do?

Adult children need to grow up.  Sometimes needing to say that is frightening to me. 

I guess letting my pregnant daughter borrow an old nightgown for the night is like giving a cup of cold water to a thirsty person.  Everything else smelled like camping I guess.

Sometimes I am very frustrated by my children’s needs and I give but not without wondering about my own wisdom.  Certainly I wonder seriously about theirs!

All decisions carry some cost.  I just think that when you make a decision it shouldn’t end up costing everyone around you more than it costs yourself.  But, I guess that is life. 

Lord, I need some mercy  and a generous spoonful of your grace so that I in turn can extend some of that to my own kids.