I've never had so much tea in my life. IN FACT - and this is amazing, to anyone who knows me remotely well - I haven't had coffee in... let's see, it was last Wednesday. A week and a day. How ridiculous. And it's all because I'm still sick, y'see, and I have this weird psychology about eating/drinking things that I like when I'm sick. Once I have something when I'm sick, it always reminds me of being sick. So when I'm under the weather, I never drink coffee. Instead I drink tea, quite fanatically. I'm so tired of being sick; luckily my fever went away on Sunday, but my sore throat hasn't, and unfortunately my voice HAS. Gone - completely. Capoot. And I'm supposed to lead worship tomorrow at mime camp, too. (Yes, there actually is such a thing. Although, it's funny that me not having a voice should be an issue... at mime camp...)
Whoa, I just had a major deja vu. WEIRD.
Well shoot. I haven't written about anything worthwhile in so long... and now that I have a free evening, I can't think of anything. Story of my life. There's just too much to cover. Suffice it to say that I'm exhausted; mostly from being sick, although nannying does exact a heavy price from my physical and mental well-being, too. I took off last Thursday and Friday, because those were the worst two days of being sick... but I've worked every day since, and it's exhausting! It's teaching me a lot, though. I feel like a mini-mom; a tiring, sometimes rewarding and sometimes terrifying, feeling. I go to work (usually) at 1 in the afternoon and come home around dinner time. Most of the days I've been feeling lousy, so I try to sleep in when I can... but then when I come home, I'm too tired to actually DO anything that I enjoy. So I've been wasting a lot of the time on the computer, reading some, writing even less, and watching TV with Mom and Kate when I'm too beat to do anything else. I can't wait to get healthy again. I'm gonna whip myself back into shape. This morning I studied French for about an hour; just because. When I took it at VC (almost two years ago now), I actually got pretty darn good at it and could figure out how to say most anything. Since then it's kind of slipped away - but I don't want it to. So I've decided, in the absence of my normal school load, to re-learn the language. I enjoyed it quite a bit, although there's only so far I can get with a textbook and my old notebooks. I have The Little Prince in French - maybe I should just read that a bunch of times. Who knows. I've got time to figure it out.
Speaking of time. It's SO WEIRD not being at school. I've actually given the "I have to do homework" excuse to people when asked to go out, just because it's automatic. When people ask how I'm doing or how they can pray for me, I want to say, "I could use prayer for school" because that's been my LIFE for like 13 years. I don't miss the college at all, but I do miss seeing my friends every day. I actually get kind of sad when I drive by it on the way to work every day - they're all there, I think. And then I feel very strangely alone. I spend more time with 3-11 year olds than I do with my family or my best friends; and then when I DO see my family and best friends, I can't think of anything to talk about. How dumb is that?
sigh. My mind is jumping all over the place. Right now I'm thinking about people and how weird it is that my age group is getting married and having babies and weird stuff like that. Granted, the baby thing at 18 IS still looked upon as premature. But still... it's happening. And other people are going out, and talking to peoples dads, and agh. When did all of that start, anyway? Who said my friends could go and do that?
Secondly, and totally unrelatedly, I've been thinking lately about the word "good." I feel like there should be (and possibly are) complete books discussing ONLY that word. I always stayed away from using it as a compliment, because it's so over-used and has lost so much of its meaning... "How did you like the new Twilight?" "Oh... it was pretty good." You know? It's basically come to mean the same thing as "fine" or "okay". Or at least that's what I thought. Being a writer, I always tried to come up with more eloquent ways of phrasing compliments or other strong descriptions. BUT. The other day I was thinking about it - and the word "good" really is the most honest way to convey what a GOOD THING IS. God didn't wax eloquence when he created the world; He didn't need to say "It is amazing" or "It is incredible" or even "It is beautiful". He said "It is Good", and that described it perfectly. So I've started using that word again, but only in instances when I actually feel like it really is Good. It's strange, but lately I've had a growing respect for a certain few words. I suppose that's one of them now.
Sheesh, I wish I could get rid of this cough. And that I could get my voice back. I'm sick of all this tea.
I know I'm so blessed to have a steady job with steady pay... but I'm so tired. The last two days have been really rough - with me feeling sick and the kids being particularly unruly - and I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. Just knowing that I have to drive to mime camp straight after work, where I'll be until Saturday night, is kind of an exhausting thought, too. I mean I love being with the mime kids, but... I just want to SLEEP. And go see movies this weekend. Oscars Sunday is coming up and I intend to see at least six movies before then.
OH! I saw the most GORGEOUS sunset on Tuesday. I was just leaving work to go to a friends house, about 40 minutes away, and I saw the sky's color in my rear view mirror. I promptly turned around and chased the sunset. I didn't stop driving until I reached a hilltop, where I parked and watched the sun go down behind the islands. They were actually and perfectly purple! I've never seen that before. It was absolutely the most beautiful sunset I've ever seen.
I need to read more. I need to WRITE more. I started writing a short story about the roman catholic church downtown that I walk by on Fridays, but I went dry after a page. I went inside, a few weeks ago while I was walking the street on a Friday morning - I don't think I ever wrote about that here. I've had a growing curiosity about that place, walking so near it when I'm out for my "sanctuary" of silence, aloneness, and autumn leaves after I teach my art class at Groups. I think it was just before Christmas when I finally got up the courage to go inside. I think it's really cool that catholic churches are open all the time, for people to come in and pray. I wonder if there's ever a time when a catholic church is actually empty - there were some apparent regulars who were there when I came in and still there when I left, but more people came and went during the hour I stayed. I was surprised how similar in architecture it was to some gothic churches in Prague - I guess it's just the roman catholic design. This one is just much smaller, newer, and Hispanic-ized. When I walked in there was a school group of little kids coming out, and about halfway through my time inside, another group came in. Funny; that was how I first came in. Seven years old, trailing along in a suspicious band of protestant children. We were on a field trip, I think simply to see the architecture or something. This particular Friday, I watched the second group of Hispanic kids come in from my seat towards the back; their teacher, a seemingly strict little man with glasses and a crew-cut, made sure that each of them knelt and crossed themselves in the aisle before sitting down. One girl only got down on one knee before jumping to her seat, and he made her do it all over again. There was a girl who came in in her pajamas (she was in and out in about three minutes), and then there were two old women who knelt at the very front of the alter and didn't move the whole time. The one that struck me most was the woman who prayed while slowly (very slowly) going up and down the aisle on her knees. She would stop every once in a while and look over her shoulder, almost ashamedly, to check if anyone was watching. It was hard not to notice her, though - even with my eyes closed, I could hear her knees dragging across the carpet. And all I could think was, wow. I'm glad God doesn't force us to do this. Maybe we should, though. Not because His grace isn't enough, but because we are so incredibly disgusting and undeserving. I've come to realize, through conversation and observation of my catholic friends and others, that a lot of catholics really wouldn't say that God's grace is unfinished, or that our works have more power than His mercy and love. I think that these views are what the original thought has evolved into. But it seems to me that, by doing humbling things like going up and down an aisle on our knees, we are recognizing to ourselves and others how very undeserving we are. It doesn't change God's mind; it changes our perspective.
I don't know if that's defensible using scripture; I haven't given it a ton of thought before now, so I haven't looked around to see what the Bible says. I do know, however, that there are countless verses about God's perfect and finished gift - and there are also verses about how faith and works are related, and how we need to humble ourselves before God. I can understand that there is danger in ritualizing our repentance; but it seems to me that if it comes from the heart, there is nothing wrong with showing how humbled we are and how dependent we are on God's Good Grace.
Well. I just wrote on and off for about an hour. It is now almost 11:30, and I'm still (unsurprisingly, since I didn't nap in the past hour) tired. So I'm going to put these thoughts to rest for now and bid you, dear reader, goodnight.
I'll try to write here more often, so my future posts won't be so jumbled and confused. Until then... vive la confusion!
No comments:
Post a Comment