Synchronicity

Greetings, Dear Ones,

It's been a lovely few weeks learning to love what is, integrating the enneagram insights I spoke of in my last blog post.  What I am beginning to notice (you may know this better than I) is how eager the Spirit is to provide what one needs once the need has become conscious.  Let me explain.

Looking at Type One, the Perfectionist, I have had to admit how desperately I punish myself for sins and imperfections, real and imagined.  And at the same time, how desperately I defend myself against criticism, constructive or gratuitous.  It's a bit like having an internal older brother -- I'll beat myself up with abandon, but don't let anyone else take a swing at me, even if I deserve it!!

So, of course, the first thing I do is troll around looking for clues to how to avoid all this pain.  There are some, most of which are terribly obvious and no less useful for being plain as the nose on one's face.  Detach from your inner critic, take breaks from your work, appreciate other people's gifts and contributions (no, you don't have to do it all).  I'm chagrined to acknowledge how few of these I actually recall from having read the list several times in the last week!  But there is one that has really stuck with me -- one that the Spirit seems to want me to pay attention to.

Love What Is

Greetings, Dear Ones,

Another couple of turbulent weeks have gone by.  Back at the beginning of May I finished a chapter of my dissertation, or so I thought.  Then I met via Skype with my faculty supervisors, and got a real kick in the gut.  Short version is, I am attempting a theological interpretation of the stories of saints of long ago, but my original supervisors are no longer with the university, and my new ones aren't theologians.  They are wonderful, accomplished, and caring historians, but each time I submit my work with an interpretation of the meaning of the text as the conclusion, they freeze.  They tell me quite honestly, "It's not what we do."  And they're right, but it is what I do, or hope to do.

It has taken a couple of weeks for me to recover from their criticism, in part because it feels nearly unresolvable (although that's an open question still), but even more because it strikes so deeply at what I feel I'm really good at.  And it's really important to me to be acknowledged for being good at things that I think I'm good at.  See where I'm going here?

Still Becoming

Hello, Dear Ones,

I've been pondering what to blog about lately, which may be why this one's a little late.  There was the weekend I spent at a conference, where I learned quite a bit, mostly about how well I do (or not) when away from home and my usual comforts and disciplines.  There is the dissertation chapter I sent to my supervisors recently, and the resulting shift of focus, from Cuthbert of Lindisfarne to Brigit of Kildare.  And there's the online course in World Religions that I'm teaching this summer -- a course that I've taught many times now, but in a whole new format.  It took a lot of work to get the course built, and we didn't know whether it would actually run or not.  Today is the first day.

And then I saw the illustration at the top of this column,  "still becoming," with that gorgeous embroidered butterfly.  (Thank you, Louise Hay.) And I thought, that's it.  Taken individually, none of these topics is all that compelling, but all together I think they say something important about a life of faith.  At root, it's all about the process of becoming.  How many grandmas do you know who are working on doctorates? How many adjuncts in the humanities are pushing their administrators to allow them to teach their first online course?  How many academics in their late fifties are attending a range of conferences, not to present, but just to find out which ones address their research interests?  Sure, there are some out there, but not many.  Or at least, I haven't met many.

What a Difference Two Weeks Makes

Greetings, Dear Ones,

What a difference two weeks can make, especially in New England in the spring.  I took a walk again today, and now there are daffodils along the road, and the bushes and trees are showing signs of leaves ready to come out soon.  The little lake at the end of my road has shed the last of its ice, and the muddy road is passable, finally!

But the best part of the change was my reason for going out walking. Two weeks ago I went out after admitting defeat.  I wasn't going to get my dissertation chapter done as quickly as I'd hoped, so I walked away from it to clear my head and resign myself to the delay.  This time it was very different.  I've been revising my writing, and checking my footnotes, and lo and behold, the chapter got sent out at 1:41 this afternoon.  My walk up the road to the lake was a treat, not a defeat.

I found myself thinking about Tolkein again, as I'd done last time.  I was asking myself, was the chapter late?  I'd promised to send it in sometime in March, but that didn't happen.  Then I thought surely by Easter, but no, not even Easter.  And then I'd wanted to send it in by the end of April, and I couldn't even manage that.  But was the chapter actually late?

Working and Walking on Holy Thursday

Greetings, Dear Ones,

Tuesday and Thursday are my "dissertation days."  They have been for quite a while now, and I look forward to having regular, dedicated time to write up my thoughts and researches on three wild and wooly saints of the early medieval period in Wales, Ireland, and Anglo-Saxon England.  I sat down this morning with great hopes of giving the chapter on Cuthbert a thorough once-over for grammar, flow, and accurate footnotes before sending it off to my faculty supervisors.  It was, however, not to be.  Writing two days a week in discrete blocks  like this has left me with a very choppy manuscript. After a while it became clear that this chapter would not be heading anywhere for at least another week.

Sigh. I had so hoped.... Realizing that this relieved some of my self-induced stress, however, allowed me to look out the window with new eyes.  A surprise snowfall yesterday had left many of us in New Hampshire worried that Spring had abandoned us far too soon.  But today most of the snow and ice was already gone, and the outdoors was beckoning.

Spring Cleaning in the Household of God

Greetings, Dear Ones,

The temperature finally got up over freezing this past weekend -- warm enough to open the windows and declare a Spring Cleaning day. I did the three bathrooms and the three upstairs rooms.  My husband cleaned out the fireplace, the porch where we stack the firewood in the winter and enjoy the sound of the nearby stream in the summer, and scrubbed out the kitchen.  Oh, bliss!

The day before, I had just heard the news that an old friend had been elected a bishop in the Episcopal Church.  Evidently the election process was a bit messy, but looking at the ballots posted on the internet, it seemed as though the newly-elected bishop had in fact been the frontrunner all along.  And it got me to wondering, how do we 'clean up' in God's household?  It was a day's work for my husband and me to get our little house sparkling and fresh.  Now my friend has been called to be the head-of-household for over 100 congregations.  How does that get done?

A Meditation on Gratitude

It was a tough weekend.  I left work early on Friday with a very queasy stomach.  Had to miss a meeting with my supervisor to get trained on some new software that I need to know within the next two weeks.  But it just wasn't worth staying there to learn it.  After spending the rest of Friday enjoying saltines and ginger ale, I was starting to feel like myself a bit on Saturday.

There was some laundry waiting to be done, so on Saturday afternoon I put the first load in.  Midway through the second load I heard a strange noise, and looked over to see water gushing out from under the washing machine onto the carpet in the next room.  Stop the machine! The water kept gushing!  Turn off the valves!  Mop up the carpet!  Pull out the soaking wet clothes and get them on a rack in the upstairs bath tub.  And figure out what to do next.  We've had the washer for almost 10 years, and never a need for repair.  Who do we call?  No idea.