I want to turn my brain off. I want to stop making lists.  I want to stop counting down the hours.  I want to stop scheduling every minute.  I want to stop planning.  I want to stop worrying. I want to stop caring about trivial things. I want to wake up and have the house be clean.  I want more time to read. I want to run farther. I want to have quiet time more often. I WANT TO START A COLONY OF ONLY PEOPLE I LIKE.  I want to paint my room purple. I want to sing every day.  I want to be an artist that I respect. I want to collaborate with composers.  I WANT TO SLEEP MORE.  I want a garden. I want to paint canvases and hang them all over the house.  I want an apron with cherries on it. I want to climb a tree.  I WANT TO BE UNSTOPPABLE.  I want to be active and healthy.  I want to be devoted.  I want to be a beacon of God’s light.  I WANT TO BRING PEOPLE HOPE. I want to serve.  I want to build.  I want to help. I want to create.  I want to dance in the rain. I want to travel to so many places. I want to see my cousins even more often than I do.  I want a bicylce.  I want to make a tree house.  I want watermelon in the summer. I want to write a book.  I want to teach.  I WANT TO DATE A GUY WHO RIDES A MOTORCYCLE. I want to learn how to bake.  I want to own a horse.  I want to learn everything I can about music.  I want to get my doctorate from a good school.  I want a fulfilling job. I WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.

Look at me, sitting here, eating my Fiber One cereal, brewing coffee, reading writings on spirituality by a Trappist monk, wearing my new running shoes, thinking of the vast power of the antioxidants in blueberries coursing through my body…  Is this really what I’ve become?  The poser I’ve always wanted to be?  Sigh, I’m so happy.

As I’m peeling into my clementine, I’m thinking of what Laura said last night, “It’s as if the breathing peels back the layers, reaching deep into what is underneath.”  She’s teaching me yoga.  It’s easy to see why she’s so obsessed with it.  You have to focus so much on your breathing and alignment during the poses that there really isn’t room for anything else but the discovery of your body.

I feel like I’m undergoing an excavation.

…to make up for the 47 things that currently piss me off.

1. I cherish having morning time to myself to write, have breakfast, and drink coffee in the sunshine-filled living room.

2. I cherish being able to work on music late, late, late into the night.

3. I cherish the time I spend with my aunt Lisa’s family and what they have taught me about loving unconditionally.

4. I cherish flowers of all kinds (particularly orchids, tulips, coxcomb, and ranunculus).

5. I cherish taking pictures of those beautiful flowers, even on my amateur camera.

6. I cherish my burgeoning bookshelves.

7. I cherish taking walks on my lunch break, even if it’s FREEZING, especially on the street lined with sycamore trees.

8. I cherish the freedom I have to reflect on life and faith and love with my friends and family.

9. I cherish sharing a meal that I’ve prepared with others and the fellowship that brings.

10. I cherish my deliciously warm and mercifully comfortable bed.

It is not irritating to be where one is.  It is only irritating to think one would like to be somewhere else.
[john cage]

I would like to be in Greece, standing at the foot of the acropolis.  Well that’s irritating.

the acropolis

I once again believed in miracles and in the impossible things that human beings can accomplish in their daily lives. The mountain peaks seemed to say to me that they were there only as a challenge to humans–and that humans exist only to accept the honor of that challenge.
[paulo cohelo]

It’s challenge city around here these days.  If it isn’t one thing, it’s the next.  You know what, though?  I feel calm and cool as a cucumber.  That’s right.  I feel like everything is unfolding just as it should.  Kind of makes me want to sit back, grab a martini, and enjoy the ride.

“No matter where I live, I always try to make friends with a tree.  I find them so much like us in so many ways.  They have their feet on the ground, their heads in the sky…. They have good years and bad years, and yet they endure.  They know how to withstand all seasons, to be patient with adversity, to store up strength for hard times.  They are nourished by the land.  When the wind blows, they understand the power of the unseen, and bow their heads before it.“

This morning I had a very pleasant run along the canal.  The air was crisp and fragrant with the smell of damp bark, the sky blue and welcoming.  I feel alive when I am outside.  I think it is the only time I gain true perspective, perhaps even more than in a pew.  Even when everything seems insurmountable, the still, small voice that is ever-present, ever-calming says “go outside.”  It always works.  Absorbed into nature, my breathing regulates, my mind is invigorated, and my heart is filled with an unspeakable peace.  I’m put back into the puzzle, just as a piece, not as the picture.

I suspected that I might find a new tree today. There was something about the way the sunlight was cutting into the woods on a diagonal.  I thought that at any moment I would find one I hadn’t seen before.  Usually my hunches are right.  Before the bridge, there it was, shining white amid the rest of the dull greys and browns–a sycamore I had somehow not yet seen.  It looked young and eager, reaching toward the light.  Reminded me of me.

When I was little, I used to climb these really old, nasty trees that formed a border between our yard and a cemetery.  There was an old vine that made a rope of sorts, and I used to climb it as if it were a portal to another land like Narnia or perhaps the front door to my Swiss Family Robinson treetop chalet.   I was always a little scared that I wouldn’t be able to get back down again once I had started, but it was worth it to escape for even a short while.  At the top, I would look out over the cemetery and the corn field behind it and think about life and how much I still did not know.  I guess I was always the way I am deep down, even as a child.  I always felt older than everyone else, as if I knew things they did not know, not so much in a prideful way, but in an “old soul” kind of way.  I think I understand why people believe in past lives and reincarnation.

Sometimes these senses of knowing are so strong that it seems I’ve actually experienced them. Climbing those trees and looking out over the graves in the cemetery taught me more about death than anything else. In fascination, I watched people as they visited the gravesites.  Many times, the visitor was one person, preparing the foot of the stone for fresh flowers.  He or she would wipe away the debris, grass clippings, and old leaves from the ground and remove the old flowers hanging limply in one of those red glass vases.  Other times, people would come in pairs, holding one another around the shoulders and quietly crying.  Men often came and stood with their hands in their pockets.  The most difficult scene I ever witnessed was at the grave of a child who had been killed in a car accident.  On the tombstone, there was etched an image of Christ holding a lamb.  The child’s mother came almost every day, ruined with grief but steadfast in prayer.

I distinctly remember observing these scenes and then seeing the trees that lined the far side of the cemetery blowing in the wind, and I knew that God was there watching, too.  Maybe those are some of my truest, earliest memories of God–the wind in the trees.

“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails…explore. Dream.  Discover.”

[Mark Twain]

Lord, please take away all my resistance.

Lord, please do not let me be slavish to my plans.

Lord, do not let me be done in by my discouragement.

Lord, let me turn over to you all my self-doubt.

Lord, let me make of my life this Lent a true sacrifice to you.

Lent is not about dieting, nor is it about drowning in misery and sinfulness.  Rather, it is just the opposite. I am learning that Lent is about experiencing the fullness of God in a new and focused way.  It is deliberately sacrificing the time and energy to make your faith a joyful reality in a life that is bombarded with distraction and discontent.

For me, this is so relevant to what lies ahead.  So many things are about to change.  For a control freak like me, this is terrifying–beyond terrifying, actually.  But there is so much joy to be uncovered if I am able to peel back the layers of fear, doubt, and self-preservation.  Under those layers are a core of sheer joy and gratitude, and they should be protected by a shroud of hope and possibility not their usual, faulty armor.  This is my prayer for Lent.  While it is true that I am giving up a couple of material things as reminders, I wish to give up this notion of self-reliance, which only breeds anxiety, and adopt a life of possibility in Christ.

Paulo is traveling as a pilgrim on the Road to Santiago in Spain. One day, his guide, Petrus (who is a wise and wonderful Italian man with a name remarkably similar to my own), leads him off of the path onto a desert-like road. Paulo thinks he is hallucinating because all the while, he thinks he hears the sound of rushing water. Suddenly, they come upon a great basin five stories deep, and they see a roaring waterfall cascading down the cliff into a beautiful oasis filled with all kinds of flora and vegetation. Paulo follows Petrus down the treacherous cliff–”The way was steep and difficult to navigate, and so as not to fall, we were forced to grasp at thorny branches and sharp rocks. When I reached the bottom, my arms and legs were lacerated.” Despite his wounds from the journey down, Paulo began to be drawn into the comfortable beauty of the scene and wanted to rest there, but Petrus said, “Let’s climb the falls…through the water!” The oasis immediately changed from a place of peace and respite into a terrifying obstacle in Paulo’s eyes, an impossible task that would undoubtedly lead to a deadly fall.

Petrus then challenged him, saying that if he were able to successfully climb to the top of the falls, Paulo would have to as well, offering his victory as a sacrifice to God. “I will climb without your being able to see where I place my hands and feet. In the same way, a disciple such as you can never imitate his guide’s steps. You have your own way of living your life, of dealing with problems, and of winning. Teaching is only demonstrating that it is possible. Learning is making it possible for yourself.” He said nothing else as he disappeared through the veil of the cascade and began to climb. Paulo could see only his outline, as if perceived through a frosted glass, but he could see that he was climbing, constantly moving forward. Sure enough, Petrus burst through the crest of the falls, and standing on the bank glistening in the sun, yelled, “Let’s go. It’s your turn.”

Terrified, Paulo dived into the water, but strangely felt a rather pleasant sensation—“a sensation of being really alive.” But the weight of the water on his head brought him back to a sense of reality, “the sense that weakens us when we most need to have faith in our powers.” He was certain that the force of the water beating down on him would surely defeat him. But once he swam behind the curtain of water, he found that there were hand and footholds that he had not seen through the mist, and he was able to climb, slowly upward, step by step.

When the most difficult part of the climb came, the top, he grew fearful, but he knew he was close to the end of his journey. He could see the sun shining on the plateau through the water and began to reach with one arm, searching for a hold, while gripping tightly for safety with his other limbs. “I began to feel great pain, because now I knew that I was only one step from success; this is the moment when one’s strength begins to flag, and one loses confidence in oneself.” But finally, just as he was sure his body would weaken and fall, he found a small hand hold and mightily threw his body upward through the water, victorious. “Come here, “ Petrus said. Paulo went to the edge of the cliff. At his feet, the water rushed by.

“Looking at it from here, it looks a lot easier than it did from down there,“ Paulo said.

“Exactly. And if I had shown it to you from here before, you would have been misled. You would have made a poor analysis of your chances.”

[the pilgrimage by paolo cohelo - chapter entitled "conquest"]

She writes!

Not much, though.

Favorite quote of the day:

ME: Are you psyched to teach today??
MEGAN: Like Joan was psyched for the stake…

HAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA.