It is so nice to skype with them, but it is still so hard to have so much of my heart so far away.
(pardon the so-so-so-so post. or, if you don't: so what?)
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
There was only one catch . . .
"That's some catch, that Catch-22," he observed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
"It's the best there is," Doc Daneeka agreed.
Sunday, September 23, 2012
My sacrificial life
Fr. Satish's homily resonated with my own recent thoughts about the life to which I am called. At first, it left me a touch demoralized. I didn't want to hear the message that yes, indeed, the standard of laying down our lives can be found nowhere except in the cross. I wanted to protest: surely I get to keep this part, or maybe that part, right? In the end, this point confirmed this idea that I've been hearing in my own reflections: I am called to live a sacrificial life in the place where I am planted. Yet it's also clear that I shouldn't receive this truth with disappointment or dismay. Life will still bring many joys, bright spots that will sustain me. Yes, there will be pain in the parts of myself I must give up in order to live as I'm called to, but I am not to dwell on that or I will miss the wonder.
And while God may eventually call me to yield all of myself, he has also created all that I am, and loves me. I am precious to him, as the person I am, and he didn't even call his Son to give up his unique personhood.
And while God may eventually call me to yield all of myself, he has also created all that I am, and loves me. I am precious to him, as the person I am, and he didn't even call his Son to give up his unique personhood.
Friday, September 21, 2012
A cold and empty well
Sometimes it feels as if there's no room for me, for my strengths and interests and affinities, in my life.
Yet focusing on that feels wrong and selfish, unfruitful and unhealthy. More importantly, every standard by which I believe I should be living confirms these latter feelings.
Yet focusing on that feels wrong and selfish, unfruitful and unhealthy. More importantly, every standard by which I believe I should be living confirms these latter feelings.
Today's word
orphic \OR-fik\ 1. of or relating to Orpheus or the rites or doctrines ascribed to him 2. of, relating to, being, or resembling an oracle : oracular, mystic 3. fascinating, entrancing
Because of the oracle of Orpheus, "orphic" can mean "oracular." Because of Orpheus' musical powers, "orphic" can mean "entrancing."
Because of the oracle of Orpheus, "orphic" can mean "oracular." Because of Orpheus' musical powers, "orphic" can mean "entrancing."
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Ahhh
Our long Skype exile is over! It is such a joy to be able to spend time with our loved ones this way!
On being reminded
My life is incomparably better now than before.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't still things that I don't like about it sometimes.
It isn't as if my emotional growth - which has brought me the freedom to examine myself and my life rather than cowering in guilt or in fear of self-discovery - is not without its negative aspects, though they are far outweighed by its benefits. It seems to me that, as with every good gift, I must continue to receive it in the context that helps me walk each day along the way to which I am called. Introspections that yield disaffection are not of any use.
The main thing, it seems to me, is to spend more time and energy focusing on my relationships with God and with others than skulking about in my own brain attending to my self interests, on the attractions of novelty, or chasing after the aroma of death that leads to death (2 Cor 2, 16).
But that doesn't mean that there aren't still things that I don't like about it sometimes.
It isn't as if my emotional growth - which has brought me the freedom to examine myself and my life rather than cowering in guilt or in fear of self-discovery - is not without its negative aspects, though they are far outweighed by its benefits. It seems to me that, as with every good gift, I must continue to receive it in the context that helps me walk each day along the way to which I am called. Introspections that yield disaffection are not of any use.
The main thing, it seems to me, is to spend more time and energy focusing on my relationships with God and with others than skulking about in my own brain attending to my self interests, on the attractions of novelty, or chasing after the aroma of death that leads to death (2 Cor 2, 16).
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Sometimes I want to wear . . .
. . . a shirt that says this:
Husbands: Stop Demeaning Your Wives!Of course, I used to do that, a lot. Sometimes I probably still do, but I hope with increasing rarity. And also of course, the men who most need to receive this message will shake their heads and "tsk" knowingly at "those husbands" who need such a message.
The Communion of Saints
At our prayer group's silver jubilee celebration last night, I found myself thinking about the many people who have passed in our midst over the past quarter-century. Some left for theological reasons, even leaving the Church for a home where they felt they could worship with less judgment of their evangelistic bent or find a closer adherence to their understanding and interpretation of Scripture; some of these were with us at the very beginning.
Most, including most of these, have simply gone on to wherever God has since planted them, throughout the country and, in some cases, around the world. We were blessed by their presence, and they grew with us in the ways that they were supposed to before going to be planted in their current communities, sometimes with multiple stops between here and there.
A few have gone home for eternity, where they participate fully in the union of which we who walk in this world have gotten only the first taste.
Last night I thought of many of them as we prayed, interceding for them and asking them to pray for us, too, aware in a special way that the Holy Spirit unites all of us in a way that we rarely glimpse and never fully grasp in this world. We are so rarely aware that we celebrate each Eucharist in communion with all those who have ever partaken from the heavenly banquet, either in this world or the one that awaits us. That isn't quite accurate, though: we await it, for we are bound by time; they participate fully with us as they are never again so restricted!
Most, including most of these, have simply gone on to wherever God has since planted them, throughout the country and, in some cases, around the world. We were blessed by their presence, and they grew with us in the ways that they were supposed to before going to be planted in their current communities, sometimes with multiple stops between here and there.
A few have gone home for eternity, where they participate fully in the union of which we who walk in this world have gotten only the first taste.
Last night I thought of many of them as we prayed, interceding for them and asking them to pray for us, too, aware in a special way that the Holy Spirit unites all of us in a way that we rarely glimpse and never fully grasp in this world. We are so rarely aware that we celebrate each Eucharist in communion with all those who have ever partaken from the heavenly banquet, either in this world or the one that awaits us. That isn't quite accurate, though: we await it, for we are bound by time; they participate fully with us as they are never again so restricted!
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Monday, September 17, 2012
Today's word
futhark \FOO-thahrk\ - any of several alphabets used by the Germanic peoples from about the 3rd to the 13th centuries — called also the runic alphabet
I'm going to accept it as a positive thing that I was not quite geeky enough as a young person to have gained knowledge of this word through some sort of obscure gaming activity. Maybe that's not such a positive thing, actually, considering what I spent my leisure time doing instead.
BTW, I think today's games are way better, by and large.
I'm going to accept it as a positive thing that I was not quite geeky enough as a young person to have gained knowledge of this word through some sort of obscure gaming activity. Maybe that's not such a positive thing, actually, considering what I spent my leisure time doing instead.
BTW, I think today's games are way better, by and large.
Sunday, September 16, 2012
The short version . . .
. . . that respects our friends' privacy, I hope:
It is more important to be kind than to be right. - misattributed, probably, to Andy Rooney
I wish our friend's husband would learn this instead of being the single greatest source of emotional chaos in a home with no shortage of other sources.
I think it's better not to publish the long version.
It is more important to be kind than to be right. - misattributed, probably, to Andy Rooney
I wish our friend's husband would learn this instead of being the single greatest source of emotional chaos in a home with no shortage of other sources.
I think it's better not to publish the long version.
Friday, September 14, 2012
He LIES
Following a brief discussion to finish the fourth - and final, I hope - edit of his document, my coworker said to me as I left his cubie, "You're perfect!"
What a blatant lie. I sure hope he speaks to his wife that way!
Hello, stranger
Nice prayer time this morning. I know I need to make that more consistent, but it's a new start.
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Ch ch ch ch changes
Until this year, this has always been a place I wouldn't mind working until I retired . . .
Invoking Matthew Kelly
We can never get enough of what we don't really need.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
In our striving to be happy, Matthew Kelly points out, we often elevate to the status of need that which is not truly a need. When we do, we just can't get enough of it, and often enter into addiction, whether to a substance or a habit, a mode of being or way of thinking, an emotional state or a dysfunctional relationship. There can be a wide variety of things we embrace that are a form of elevating a desire to the status of need, and we should be on the watch against this tendency.
On the other hand are our legitimate needs. As with so much of life, we tend toward a pair of antipodal mistakes with regard to them. With regard to some of our legitimate needs, we spend so much time fretting about them that we interfere with them or with other legitimate needs in our lives. We have no trust in God to provide what we truly need by any other means but our own efforts, embracing the adage that "God helps those who help themselves," certain that its inverse is true as well. So we end up spending inordinate amounts of time and energy on those things that God would have us trust in him for (after doing our part), often to the detriment of things that only we can do anything about. These things we often neglect for the sake of the things we consider more important, or at least more urgent.
All of which is a long way of observing that I sure haven't made much time for prayer lately, and maybe I should be doing that instead of writing.
The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
In our striving to be happy, Matthew Kelly points out, we often elevate to the status of need that which is not truly a need. When we do, we just can't get enough of it, and often enter into addiction, whether to a substance or a habit, a mode of being or way of thinking, an emotional state or a dysfunctional relationship. There can be a wide variety of things we embrace that are a form of elevating a desire to the status of need, and we should be on the watch against this tendency.
On the other hand are our legitimate needs. As with so much of life, we tend toward a pair of antipodal mistakes with regard to them. With regard to some of our legitimate needs, we spend so much time fretting about them that we interfere with them or with other legitimate needs in our lives. We have no trust in God to provide what we truly need by any other means but our own efforts, embracing the adage that "God helps those who help themselves," certain that its inverse is true as well. So we end up spending inordinate amounts of time and energy on those things that God would have us trust in him for (after doing our part), often to the detriment of things that only we can do anything about. These things we often neglect for the sake of the things we consider more important, or at least more urgent.
All of which is a long way of observing that I sure haven't made much time for prayer lately, and maybe I should be doing that instead of writing.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
An older example - edited
Very early in my faith journey, while we were still living in Biloxi, I encountered the idea that the biggest obstacle to our receiving God's blessings and transformation in our lives is unforgiveness. How can we heal from a hurt to which we insist on clinging? It's like continually scraping off a scab before the underlying skin and tissue have had a chance to heal.
My first encounter with this, in early 1985, was my realization that I needed to forgive my alcoholic (and adoptive) father for not being the dad I needed. He'd never been able to accept me for who I was, and I'd figured out that I was deeply scarred by that. He'd been dead for a decade by then, so it wasn't as if I could approach him to offer forgiveness and seek reconciliation, yet I still needed to experience the process for myself. I remember lying in bed each night, recognizing that I needed to forgive him and that I didn't know how, asking God to do what I could not. Before long I realized that the way he treated me and his alcoholism and suicide were all commonly rooted in his own deep brokenness. I found myself praying for healing for his soul, that he would somehow, by God's grace, enter into the eternity that he rejected while he was alive. Soon, I found myself understanding him far better than I ever had before and sincerely wanting the best for him, and the peacefulness that brought to my own soul was tangible.
So there, in a nutshell, was the reiterative process of forgiveness where no other person could participate. Shouldn't I expect to need a similar process to completely forgive myself?
My first encounter with this, in early 1985, was my realization that I needed to forgive my alcoholic (and adoptive) father for not being the dad I needed. He'd never been able to accept me for who I was, and I'd figured out that I was deeply scarred by that. He'd been dead for a decade by then, so it wasn't as if I could approach him to offer forgiveness and seek reconciliation, yet I still needed to experience the process for myself. I remember lying in bed each night, recognizing that I needed to forgive him and that I didn't know how, asking God to do what I could not. Before long I realized that the way he treated me and his alcoholism and suicide were all commonly rooted in his own deep brokenness. I found myself praying for healing for his soul, that he would somehow, by God's grace, enter into the eternity that he rejected while he was alive. Soon, I found myself understanding him far better than I ever had before and sincerely wanting the best for him, and the peacefulness that brought to my own soul was tangible.
So there, in a nutshell, was the reiterative process of forgiveness where no other person could participate. Shouldn't I expect to need a similar process to completely forgive myself?
The real audience
I realized after I published this post last night that my desire to apologize to my old friend, and to restore an appropriate degree of our closeness and our knowing each other, is secondary to the person I'm really apologizing to in it.
Am I not really apologizing to myself, for the hurt I inflicted upon myself in my cooperative silence so long ago, and how it contributed to the brokenness that led me to deceive myself into such awful choices and actions later?
If, as I concluded with my therapist, forgiveness is a process we must often invoke iteratively until a set of conditions is met in our relationship with someone who has hurt us - a level of reconciliation and healing appropriate for the degree of intimacy that we desire with that person - shouldn't I expect to have to reiterate it the most often with the one person whom it is impossible to avoid in this life?
Really, what it comes down to is that the choice is really before me all the time: cut myself some slack, or die. I've clearly decided against the latter, which is probably a good thing.
So intermingled with my virtual apology to my friend is an apology to my younger self, too.
Am I not really apologizing to myself, for the hurt I inflicted upon myself in my cooperative silence so long ago, and how it contributed to the brokenness that led me to deceive myself into such awful choices and actions later?
If, as I concluded with my therapist, forgiveness is a process we must often invoke iteratively until a set of conditions is met in our relationship with someone who has hurt us - a level of reconciliation and healing appropriate for the degree of intimacy that we desire with that person - shouldn't I expect to have to reiterate it the most often with the one person whom it is impossible to avoid in this life?
Really, what it comes down to is that the choice is really before me all the time: cut myself some slack, or die. I've clearly decided against the latter, which is probably a good thing.
So intermingled with my virtual apology to my friend is an apology to my younger self, too.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Unresolved
You're one of the last two people to whom I still feel that I owe an apology, and there was certainly no chance of that last weekend. Really, I can't see any way I'm ever going to be able to offer it.
So this is as close as I can probably ever get, for you:
I'm so sorry that I didn't think to trust you with the darkness that was so consuming me when we knew each other, to tell you what he was doing to me. I suppose if I could have, things might have been very different for me, but I never even considered it. I think that was because it started in between, when you weren't even in my life anymore, and by the time you were again it was such a part of my reality that I didn't consider talking about it. I hated myself for it, though, even without knowing it. Really, I don't see how telling you would have changed anything, anyway; it isn't as if I never told anybody in the intervening decades, but always with the underlying lie intact: wasn't I lucky that it didn't affect me. That certainly didn't put me on the road to wholeness. No, the main reason I regret not telling you is that we were good enough friends that I should have been able to tell you, and I'm sorry I didn't.
But there's a bigger thing that I really want to apologize for: I can't hope to communicate how sorry I am to have violated so utterly the hope we had for the kind of people we would become. I'm sorry that I became, for a time, the kind of person you'd want nothing to do with, who you'd have been ashamed of. Maybe, knowing, you still wouldn't, and I'm also sorry that I'm not going to give you the chance to make that decision. It isn't that I'm withholding it from you, robbing you of the choice, just that I don't see an opportunity.
I hope that my decision to respond to that darkness in the only way I could think of that might bring healing and hope would be something you could respect, at least, even if it was also rooted in a strong sense of self-preservation. I've been getting healthy since then, and I want you to know that I'm still trying to be live up to the hopes we had for one another.I don't suppose there's really any use to this exercise, either, but there it is.
Today's word
stravage \struh-VAYG\ - to roam
I'd have never guessed the meaning of this word, and would have butchered its pronunciation in at least two ways (though it's alternate spelling would have helped with that). I will also never retain it in my vocabulary if I don't find a chance to use it soon, unless I manage to recall its etymology.
I'd have never guessed the meaning of this word, and would have butchered its pronunciation in at least two ways (though it's alternate spelling would have helped with that). I will also never retain it in my vocabulary if I don't find a chance to use it soon, unless I manage to recall its etymology.
Professional roadblock
In an environment of (still more) cutbacks, it is a bad time to be running into brick walls on a project with a fast-approaching deadline.
Monday, September 10, 2012
A nice time
I was so relieved to hear my bride commenting on how nice our visit was. I still wish she could do that without denigrating her own feelings. There's no doubt that they were valid, and it bothers me to hear her dismiss them by suggesting otherwise.
It is almost as if we can't escape from this idea that our feelings are right or wrong. Still, it's good for us to recognize that the assumptions behind them might be, or might be rooted in an accurate or inaccurate view of a situation. My wife's feelings had not changed much in three decades, were based on my actions, and therefore were completely reasonable both in their origin and in their persistence. Yet the assumptions and dynamic that first produced her unease thirty years ago were no longer at work today. It took experiencing our changed dynamic in this new relationship environment to help her feel more at ease. I'm so grateful that she was willing to give that a shot, that we've become secure enough in our relationship together that this was possible.
Having reinforced that I won't disregard her or demean her, or put her in situations in which she is likely to flounder, I'm confident we will continue to grow together as a couple secure in each other's love.
It is almost as if we can't escape from this idea that our feelings are right or wrong. Still, it's good for us to recognize that the assumptions behind them might be, or might be rooted in an accurate or inaccurate view of a situation. My wife's feelings had not changed much in three decades, were based on my actions, and therefore were completely reasonable both in their origin and in their persistence. Yet the assumptions and dynamic that first produced her unease thirty years ago were no longer at work today. It took experiencing our changed dynamic in this new relationship environment to help her feel more at ease. I'm so grateful that she was willing to give that a shot, that we've become secure enough in our relationship together that this was possible.
Having reinforced that I won't disregard her or demean her, or put her in situations in which she is likely to flounder, I'm confident we will continue to grow together as a couple secure in each other's love.
The secondary point
Oh, regarding this post: what I forgot to say directly, though I implied it with the title, is that I've been chewing on why it hurt just a little that my friend didn't remember the encounter that I'd found so special for its unexpectedness and so memorable in its details. Maybe I'm just missing something, or maybe it was more etched in my memory as a result of being caught up in such an emotional time - my grandfather's death, and the announcement by my mother and my abuser (though I didn't think of him that way yet, nor did mom know anything of that) that they were moving to live together.
Still, that said, I'm just glad for the time we got to spend together last week. It wasn't one of those "Oh, nothing has changed at all" sort of visits, but it was all the nicer for it. Had nothing changed in the interim, my bride would still be intimidated by my friend, and I'd still be giving her reason to be, making comparisons that were just unfair to both of them rather than acknowledging and dealing with the emotional havoc in my life wreaked by my stepfather's abuse.
Still, that said, I'm just glad for the time we got to spend together last week. It wasn't one of those "Oh, nothing has changed at all" sort of visits, but it was all the nicer for it. Had nothing changed in the interim, my bride would still be intimidated by my friend, and I'd still be giving her reason to be, making comparisons that were just unfair to both of them rather than acknowledging and dealing with the emotional havoc in my life wreaked by my stepfather's abuse.
Sunday, September 09, 2012
This probably shouldn't bother me
Our trip was pretty wonderful, overall. A farewell hug from our old Air Force friend's wife didn't seem at all reserved, in contrast to the greeting, so I guess that was just me? The visits with my high school/college friend and her husband (we saw them twice) were also very nice.
Still, there was a weird moment in our visit with them, for me, when we were at dinner on Thursday night. First, an old (and long) story. The prelude: though I'd had a silly crush I had on her as a naive HS freshman (whose dad had suddenly and mysteriously died just the previous month), we evolved into the closest of friends in college. I also developed romantic feelings for her, very different from my crush years before, but she was dating her eventual husband by then, and I respected her need to respect that relationship. I reunited with and married my high school sweetheart, joined the Air Force, and moved to MS with my new family in 1981.
End of prelude, start of story: When my granddad passed away - I'm thinking it was 1983 - I was a low-ranking airman. We got help from the Air Force Aid Society so I could go home for his funeral. At some point while I was there - maybe after the funeral? - I was having lunch with my HS best friend at Burke's, a Baltimore near-landmark that closed earlier this year. I'd been there several times before with my step-father, with and without my mom. As we were getting ready to leave, I heard a shocked exclamation from a familiar voice. It was my college friend, who was in town visiting with her family. As we were talking, her eyes grew wide as she realized that she'd dreamed that very scene just the night before, but I was only in it as an obscured presence; she knew someone was there with our HS friend but couldn't tell who, as the person was hidden behind the pillar next to which I was standing. I think our friend went back to work from there, and she and I spent the afternoon together. We went to the still-new Harborplace mall, the linchpin of Baltimore's urban renewal, which had opened before I left town but I'd never really visited. At some point I mentioned a fantasy series I was reading that she'd already finished. I'd just finished the penultimate book in the series. The last one had recently come out, and I was waiting for it to be released in softcover. She bought me a copy as a gift, so I wouldn't have to wait. I was leaving the next day; she took me to the airport after a stop at the Market House in Annapolis for breakfast. The whole unexpected encounter just underscored the closeness we'd shared.
So I mentioned this episode on Thursday at dinner. She remembers none of it.
It's probably good that we'll never be that close again. I share an emotional connection with my wife that was missing from our life together back then. Maybe what I felt with her was something of a substitute for what I was otherwise lacking? But our time together with our spouses this past weekend felt more like what I think our friendship should really be like.
Still, there was a weird moment in our visit with them, for me, when we were at dinner on Thursday night. First, an old (and long) story. The prelude: though I'd had a silly crush I had on her as a naive HS freshman (whose dad had suddenly and mysteriously died just the previous month), we evolved into the closest of friends in college. I also developed romantic feelings for her, very different from my crush years before, but she was dating her eventual husband by then, and I respected her need to respect that relationship. I reunited with and married my high school sweetheart, joined the Air Force, and moved to MS with my new family in 1981.
End of prelude, start of story: When my granddad passed away - I'm thinking it was 1983 - I was a low-ranking airman. We got help from the Air Force Aid Society so I could go home for his funeral. At some point while I was there - maybe after the funeral? - I was having lunch with my HS best friend at Burke's, a Baltimore near-landmark that closed earlier this year. I'd been there several times before with my step-father, with and without my mom. As we were getting ready to leave, I heard a shocked exclamation from a familiar voice. It was my college friend, who was in town visiting with her family. As we were talking, her eyes grew wide as she realized that she'd dreamed that very scene just the night before, but I was only in it as an obscured presence; she knew someone was there with our HS friend but couldn't tell who, as the person was hidden behind the pillar next to which I was standing. I think our friend went back to work from there, and she and I spent the afternoon together. We went to the still-new Harborplace mall, the linchpin of Baltimore's urban renewal, which had opened before I left town but I'd never really visited. At some point I mentioned a fantasy series I was reading that she'd already finished. I'd just finished the penultimate book in the series. The last one had recently come out, and I was waiting for it to be released in softcover. She bought me a copy as a gift, so I wouldn't have to wait. I was leaving the next day; she took me to the airport after a stop at the Market House in Annapolis for breakfast. The whole unexpected encounter just underscored the closeness we'd shared.
So I mentioned this episode on Thursday at dinner. She remembers none of it.
It's probably good that we'll never be that close again. I share an emotional connection with my wife that was missing from our life together back then. Maybe what I felt with her was something of a substitute for what I was otherwise lacking? But our time together with our spouses this past weekend felt more like what I think our friendship should really be like.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
An old friend
I was so unhealthy then.
I think these were important words for me to say on Thursday night, and I'm glad I got the chance to, without going into any detail or turning a pleasant reunion into an intense experience of another sort for any of us.
I think these were important words for me to say on Thursday night, and I'm glad I got the chance to, without going into any detail or turning a pleasant reunion into an intense experience of another sort for any of us.
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Feelings all a-jumble
Kim. T. wedding. memorial arrangements. crazy work.
sad. excited. nervous. happy. anxious. (not a one-to-one correspondence with the previous list.)
better skip that next sangria i was contemplating.
sad. excited. nervous. happy. anxious. (not a one-to-one correspondence with the previous list.)
better skip that next sangria i was contemplating.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Today's words
caduceus \kuh-DOO-see-us\ - 1. the symbolic staff of a herald; specifically : a representation of a staff with two entwined snakes and two wings at the top 2. an insignia bearing a caduceus and symbolizing a physician
Seems as if I should have known this one. But when I see it, my brain wants to think "adjective" instead of noun," as if it ended in -ous.
And from today's word game:
anadem \A-nuh-,dem\ - (archaic) a wreath for the head : garland
aerolite \AIR-uh-,lite\ - a stony meteorite
screed \SKREED\ - 1a : a lengthy discourse b. an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter) C. a ranting piece of writing 2. a strip (as of a plaster of the thickness planned for the coat) laid on as a guide 3. a leveling device drawn over freshly poured concrete
I knew the third definition of this last one, and had at least heard the first two before.
Seems as if I should have known this one. But when I see it, my brain wants to think "adjective" instead of noun," as if it ended in -ous.
And from today's word game:
anadem \A-nuh-,dem\ - (archaic) a wreath for the head : garland
aerolite \AIR-uh-,lite\ - a stony meteorite
screed \SKREED\ - 1a : a lengthy discourse b. an informal piece of writing (as a personal letter) C. a ranting piece of writing 2. a strip (as of a plaster of the thickness planned for the coat) laid on as a guide 3. a leveling device drawn over freshly poured concrete
I knew the third definition of this last one, and had at least heard the first two before.
Reunions and dear friends
I find (and have noticed others comment on this, as well) that my closest, most precious friends are those with whom I can get together after an absence - weeks, years, even decades - and feel as if we're picking up right where we left off.
I don't really expect to have that experience this week. There has just been too much of my own history in the intervening score-point-four years since we unexpectedly bumped into each other in Baltimore. The dynamic of having our spouses there will make things very different, too. I never spent much time with both T. and her then-boyfriend, save one autumn evening thirty three years ago, as his Academy schedule didn't permit a lot of socializing (which was practically my major at that point). Teri never much knew either of them.
I hope I'm pleasantly surprised, but I've learned that I should never expect that to happen, anyway, as the expectation can be the biggest thing that gets in the way. The other thing is, it isn't just old friends who can feel like that every time you talk with them. I've learned that close friendships, while rare and precious, appear where you least expect them, and it is important for me to tend them whether old or new so that they don't drift away over time and distance.
That gets especially important in those times when a good friend might have his or her own hands and life full. I guess I count myself fortunate to have had a couple cases of that of late, because I wouldn't have that "problem" were I not truly blessed with incredibly good friends. Still, it's important for me to not cross the line between friend and pest.
That gets especially important in those times when a good friend might have his or her own hands and life full. I guess I count myself fortunate to have had a couple cases of that of late, because I wouldn't have that "problem" were I not truly blessed with incredibly good friends. Still, it's important for me to not cross the line between friend and pest.
Monday, September 03, 2012
Sunday, September 02, 2012
A frustrating development
So a few years ago, after an incident with a blown exhaust system while we were home in Maryland for an emergency visit, I knew my hearing had gotten worse. I've since had my hearing tested, and knew that I really should have some hearing aids to correct my loss. The thing is, decent hearing aids are going to require a sizable investment, and will not be covered by our insurance.
But I've noticed in recent weeks another noticeable decline in my hearing. I'm asking people to repeat themselves more often in situations in which I think I'd have been able to hear them in the past. But the clearest indication of just how bad things have gotten came this morning during Mass. Before the Holy Holy, I looked down at my guitar and reminded myself that I needed to move the capo before I started playing. Halfway through I noticed that something didn't sound right. Yes, I forgotten to move it, and the really disturbing part is that my hearing has gotten so bad that I was halfway through a piece I was vigorously strumming before I noticed I was a half-step off key. So while we try to budget for hearing aids next year, I'm going to have to stop singing while I'm playing with our choir.
But I've noticed in recent weeks another noticeable decline in my hearing. I'm asking people to repeat themselves more often in situations in which I think I'd have been able to hear them in the past. But the clearest indication of just how bad things have gotten came this morning during Mass. Before the Holy Holy, I looked down at my guitar and reminded myself that I needed to move the capo before I started playing. Halfway through I noticed that something didn't sound right. Yes, I forgotten to move it, and the really disturbing part is that my hearing has gotten so bad that I was halfway through a piece I was vigorously strumming before I noticed I was a half-step off key. So while we try to budget for hearing aids next year, I'm going to have to stop singing while I'm playing with our choir.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)