I Nearly Made It!

Last week I said I needed to practice what I preached. I’ll pat myself on the back and say that I did a pretty good job. There were just a very few times when I lost my mind and tuned in to the news again. I must say that I do feel much better, mental health-wise. The hold that the media has over us is pretty frightening.

A friend posted this on her Facebook page which pretty well sums it up. Henri Nouwen’s meditation for today also speaks to me about the need to recognize those things that actually rob us of our true freedom. “Freedom Is Our Goal While fear and anger are the most natural and most obvious reactions to a state of emergency, they have to be unmasked as expressions of our false selves. When we are trembling with fear or seething with anger, we have sold ourselves to the world or to a false god. Fear and anger take our freedom away and make us victims of the strong seductions of our world. Fear, as well as anger, when we look at them in solitude and quiet, reveal to us how deeply our sense of worth is dependent either on our success in the world or on the opinions of others. We suddenly realize that we have become what we do or what others think of us.” I can’t say that a lot has gone on this week. It’s been pretty quiet. Nice weather at the beginning of the week with temperatures in the high 40s the day before the blizzard on Thursday night and Friday. We did not get a lot of snow but we had a whole lot of blowing. The old dirty white stuff is now covered up by a fresh coat of snow. Some say that’s good. I’ll refuse to comment. According to the calendar we are in the month of January so we can expect a little winter in this part of the world. My college geography professor pointed out several times that the most productive people live in the parts of the world that experience seasonal changes. Supposedly we are invigorated by the yearly round of seasons. After experiencing who knows how many seasonal changes I can’t say that I’ve proved his hypothesis, if it were his hypothesis and not that of someone else. He never quoted an authority as far as I can remember. I know I do look forward to the change of seasons particularly winter to spring, spring to summer and summer to autumn. I must be honest and admit that I don’t look forward to winter, although once it is here, it’s not all that bad. Granted, my outlook changed when I did not have to be at school at an early hour. Before my retirement from the public school system the policy was to not announce school closings until the morning of the day school was to be closed due to weather. The mind struggle then was over how early one must rise to (1) find out if school were closed, and (2) allow for time to plow the driveway before the usual round of preschool readiness activities. I will freely admit that I did not sleep well in anticipation of the following day’s events. Now I can sleep all night, get up when I want, look at the snow, and decide that any trip out of the house is canceled for that day. I did that very thing on Friday morning. My usual task is to “babysit” the desk at the Visual Arts Center in the Washington Pavilion of Arts and Science. Since the pandemic struck and the Pavilion was closed for several months, business has been slow to pick up again. I really enjoy volunteering there and was looking for a safe way to continue that. I knew it would not be wise for me to act as a docent for school groups given my immune system. Being at the desk is really quite safe. Masks are required and no one is really near me if anyone actually comes in. Given the blizzard without and the prospect of no, or very few, customers within I called in “snow bound.” I can’t say a great deal was accomplished at home, but the homebody was safe and sound and warm.

This would have been a perfect day to begin work on the 1000 piece puzzle of the harbor of Santorini. It still remains in its hermetically sealed package. Perhaps tonight? Last week, on Tuesday we did have a perfectly gorgeous sunrise. It brought to mind the first line of one of the hymns for the Daily Office, “O splendor of God’s glory bright.”

There have been no medical problems this week for which I am most grateful, as I am for all of your thoughts and prayers sustaining me through the week. I hold all of you close to my heart.