Miscellany

No Friday Five yet, so I think I'll take a cue from my friend Jan and post seven random things. 

1.  I am feeling extremely restless.  I have way too much to do, a problem exacerbated by the fact that I have jury duty next week.  I am just this morning recognizing that I am going to have to complete many of my usual tasks in the evenings when I am tired and cranky. 

2. An excellent read: my friend Karen's post on her response to a well-intended but ultimately heartless remark in a church context.  I have to admit, though, that while I am sympathetic, having been the beneficiary of countless hurtful comments that were intended to help, I am also reminded of my own multiple failures in this regard.

3.  One of Christianity's most basic tenets is that God is unchanging.  It's not one that I have ever particularly believed.  I have no idea, really, why people find it to be comforting or reassuring or whatever they find it to be, to imagine or believe or hope that God is unchanging.  But this morning I woke up wondering whether it might be true, and what it might be like to know, in the core of my being, that God does not change.  And then I thought of Teresa of Avila's prayer:  

Let nothing disturb you,
Let nothing frighten you,
All things pass away:
God never changes.
Patience obtains all things.
He who has God
Finds he lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

So, you know, I wonder.

4. Another excellent read: this one, from Law and Gospel.  I think that she must be an extraordinarily fine pastor.  I love being a pastor, and a spiritual director, but lately I have been thinking that I'm not very good at either.

5.  I am supposed to have my annual mammogram next week.  I suppose that I will have to change that appointment, due to jury duty.  I am trying not to think about it.  I tend to forget, most of the time, but last week I happened to be getting dressed in front of the bathroom mirror, and I happened to glance up, and I reacted as follows: "Oh my GOD!"

6. We are going to have our garage largely rebuilt.  It is, like our house, a nearly 100-year old brick building.  It has taken my husband and a friend six months to find matching bricks and guys who can do the work.  One of the walls was damaged by a tree planted much too close to it by the original owners; we removed the tree long ago, but the wall did not regenerate itself,  The front overhang was destroyed by carpenter ants a few summers ago. Our kitchen is a shambles, but we are going to get a garage.  I'm sure that says something.  

7.  I had a dream about Josh the other night.  He was standing on the steps in the breezeway of his high school, wearing his red and white soccer uniform, and talking to me about something mundane.  And then I woke up.  I am sure that that dream of a few seconds is why I am so unsettled and so desperately sad.  I hope that, unlike Karen, I manage to avoid people with fixing in mind.