Today's words

chiaroscuro /'kee ar uh SKYOOR oh, KEE ar us 'skoo roh/ - 1. pictorial representation in terms of light and shade without regard to color  2a. the arrangement or treatment of light and dark parts in a pictorial work of art  b. the interplay or contrast of dissimilar qualities (as of mood or character)  3. a 16th century woodcut technique involving the use of several blocks to print different tones of the same color; also : a print made by this technique  4. the interplay of light and shadow on or as if on a surface   5. the quality of being veiled or partly in shadow

I have encountered this term before, but couldn't recall it. It was the screened-out word in today's Dictionary Devil puzzle.

bitt /BIT/ - 1. a post or pair of posts fixed on the deck of a ship for securing lines  2. bollard 1

I've probably encountered this term in my limited nautical experiences. It's interesting that the definitions for bitt and bollard refer to each other. Apparently the names of the ship-mounted and wharf-mounted devices are misused for each other commonly enough that each has become acceptable for the other.

Today's word

Another familiar word with an interesting etymology.

Today's word

proximate \PRAHK-suh-mut\ - 1. immediately preceding or following (as in a chain of events, causes, or effects)  2a. very near : close  b. soon forthcoming : imminent

I knew the approximate meaning of this one, but not its nuances.

A break from blogging dreams

I'm not posting details of last night's dreams, but at least they weren't anything terribly disturbing.

A familiar WOTD

A now-acceptable four-letter word with a tawdry history.

Today's words

As I was keeping up on other things over the weekend, I completely missed a couple new words, plus the one for today:

nocuous \NAH-kyuh-wus\ - harmful

Well, of course there has to be an opposite of innocuous!

rowel \ROWL\ - 1. to goad with or as if with a pointed disk at the end of a spur  2. vex, trouble

I might have known the first definition at one time, and from it the second makes sense. Would have pronounced it as two syllables, though.

corn salad \KORN-SAL-ud\ - any of several herbs (genus Valerianella) of the valerian family; especially : a low European herb (V. locusta syn. V. olitoria) that is widely cultivated for its leaves used in salads and as a potherb

If I ever saw this, I surely thought the user was talking about a salad with a main ingredient of maize.

Today's word

vapor \VAY-per\ - 1a. to rise or pass off in vapor  b. to emit vapor  2. to indulge in bragging, blustering, or idle talk

I'd never heard a verb form of this word before, and particularly not the second definition.

A cabin and priorities

We were at my wife's cousin's place in Kentucky. They were lamenting that they could neither make any changes to their grounds nor sell the place, because the water runs off of it to the north until it reaches Turkey, which is insistent that nothing interfere with the water supply. We hiked along in the woods until we came to their new cabin getaway, of which they had (in the dream) previously shown us pictures. It was rustic and small, wide enough for a double- and a twin-sized bed with a few feet of space in between them. The view there was lovely, though.

In my next dream, I was overdue to call and schedule my next appointment. (In reality, this might be rooted in being due for my next guitar lesson.)  When I called, it was actually to schedule an appointment with my overseeing therapy team, but there was another specialist with whom I'd been working in the interim, but slowly, at my own pace (when I got around to it, like I've been practicing my guitar lesson, in reality, come to think of it). The overseeing therapy team was insistent that it was well past time for me to have completed this phase of my program, and if I couldn't make it the priority it was supposed to be, I could expect to suffer the consequences of my decision.



I was told long ago (am talking decades here) that to start remembering more dreams, start recording them upon waking. This seems to be my experience of late. I am remembering many more dreams since I started including them in my blog. However, I'm not sure that I see much benefit in this activity, which I seem to have made into a routine despite never really intending to do so.  I may keep doing this for a little while longer, but now with an eye toward deciding whether I should just stop.

Habit and inertia, or faith and conviction?

Last night I ended up with an unexpected time of sharing and prayer with a lone prayer group member who arrived just as I was leaving. I knew that the four other regulars wouldn't be there last night; three were out of town, and my wife had taken a phone call from the last of them shortly before I got home from work letting me know that he wasn't going to be there. I didn't know whether anyone unexpected might show up, though this was the one person who I thought might. The thing is, when she does make it, she is consistently, significantly late. But since my own prayer time has been too lacking lately, I figured I would take advantage of the opportunity to simply enter into the Lord's presence in prayer and praise for a while. I'd picked a time when I would pack up and leave if no one else had arrived, but it wasn't hard and fast. It was more a matter of wanting to stay at least that long, and if I stayed longer because of how the prayer time was going, that was fine.

I prayed the rosary, as we do starting a half hour before our formal start time, lifting up a number of prayer concerns. As I entered into praise and worship time, I especially lifted up my incarcerated friend and his wife, praying that the Holy Spirit would unite and uplift their spirits with the joy of praise in God's presence, as well. They were so instrumental in my having this ministry, and it is so hard to see them dealing with what they're presently up against. After I was done singing and playing, I took some time to thank the Lord for the blessings of the past week, then read through the gospel for Sunday. I will confess that I shortchanged this, in part because of wanting to check all of the gospels for elements of the Stations of the Cross, which I did while I had my bible open. I then spent some time in intercessory prayer for a few concerns I hadn't thought to lift up during the rosary. When I checked the clock, it was about 5 minutes later than the time to which I'd committed to God that I'd stay. So I packed up and carried my stuff out to my car.

And along came the other prayer group member that I'd thought might be there.  Being honest with myself, I had a moment of annoyance. I was looking forward to getting home and taking care of a small chore that needs to be done.  Still, I waited for her to park, and it was clear from the few minutes of sharing that she needed to talk at more length and just be in touch with God's presence for a while. She has probably been too removed from her spiritual walk each day, and as we are prone to do, had begun to wonder about God's plan for our lives and whether our choices really make a difference.

So we went back into the building and talked for a while. I won't share her details, or my opinions. But I found myself reaffirming for her my belief that God really is at work in and through the circumstances of our lives, that we get to make decisions along the way to trust in God's plan or not, and that we need not spend too much energy or anxiety worrying about whether we're getting the details of our individual decisions along the way right. We aren't going to derail God's work; God has already worked our decisions into his plan of love for the world. Yet our decisions are no less important because of that: the best thing for us is always to act in concert with a desire to do God's will. It is like Merton prayed: we don't know what pleases God, but must believe that the desire to please God does, in fact, God. There was a great reading in yesterday's Office of Readings from St. Bernard that expresses a related thought. Of course it is impossible for us to return God's love in any sort of equivalent measure. What we offer in return will always be paltry compared to God's love for us, and yet offering what we can of God's love back to him is the best we have to offer.

And somewhere in the course of things, I also talked about my spiritual exercise from last week, reminding myself that God always provides for what I need, and if I perceive any lack then it is because either that thing is not a need or God is in the process of providing for it.

Anyway, an hour later we had talked and prayed, and I think she felt touched by God's presence again in our time together.

And somehow, in that moment, everything I shared came forth as if I haven't had the exact same doubts and questions myself. I guess maybe we all do, and we each need someone to reassure us from time to time, to reinforce for us what we must accept by faith. But as I mentioned last night, of this I am certain: even should it ultimately turn out that I am wrong about everything that I believe, there is no other road which I might choose apart from this one that has any potential for leading me to be the best person I can be.

Today's WOTD . . .

. . . isn't anything new, though there is a new word for me at the end of the list of related words.

Today's words

Boring WOTD today, but a couple from the puzzle:

gulosity /gyu-LAH-sih-tee/ - excessive appetite : greediness

Maybe this is my problem?  (I had heard of this word before.)

dewar /DEW-er; DYEW-er/ - a glass or metal container made like a vacuum bottle that is used especially for storing liquefied gases —called also Dewar flask

This, however, was a new one. I wonder if the inventor was akin to the Scotch whiskey family. I suppose this name may be a Scottish equivalent of "Smith" in popularity.

The thing is . . .

. . . I know I should always feel grateful to God (as I do toward Fr. Paul) for all that he has done for me, appreciative for the life I have, instead of . . .

well . . .

like I do . . .

all the time.

Going to go worship God for a little while now this morning, for I know that He is greater than my feelings about my life.

Today's word

mot juste \moh-ZHEWST\ - the exactly right word or phrasing

I love words that are examples of themselves.

Helicopter rappelling

In last night's dream, I was taking electronic target practice at guys who were rappelling from helicopters. They were wearing targets, and I was trying to shoot them with an electronic gun and be credited with points for hitting them before they reached the ground. I made my way to the hangar where they were based and inquired how I could be trained to rappel from a helicopter, because it looked fun, if a little dangerous. They told me that the first person from my organization who had been trained was (in reality) the supervisor of our technical resource center, a guy who (in reality) has to be pushing 275 pounds, mostly around his middle. In my dream, this was the same place I did my skydive, and it turned out that they did a variety of different types of certifications, including the one for rappelling and for shooting at rappelling invaders. I asked if there was a program to enroll in that would let me get qualified for all of them.

A debt of gratitude that I can never repay

In the resolution of my crime against my family, I was offered mercy in the form of a diversion program. I was to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and complete an intense program of individual, group and family therapy. Most of my six-month sentence would be suspended so long as I cooperated fully in the program. However, for at least a couple of important reasons, they never suspend the entire sentence.

First of all, the changes to one's life that are required to recover from being an abuser are always more drastic than the abuser understands when entering therapy. We tend to think that we have this one broken part of our life that we need to fix, and almost never understand that abuse never happens in a vacuum, that we are going to need to make changes in almost our entire life. Too, many abusers minimize the severity of their crimes, the terrible impact we have on our victims. Not finally, there are also painful and scary elements of our own past that formed us in a way that makes our abusive choices possible, and successful healing of our lives requires that we face this history before we complete our program of therapy. Because there are so many painful obstacles that we might want to avoid along the road to healing, it is important that we have a strong reason to hold fast to our commitment. A taste of the consequences of failing to stay the course of our therapy program is an important motivator, and the only way to really get that is by spending a few days in jail.

Equally importantly, by the end of a successful treatment program we have a better understanding of the harm that we have done than people do whose lives have not been touched by abuse. To not have experienced at least a minimal punishment for our actions can contribute to a lack of resolution.

In this diversion program, one of the goals is to keep the negative impact on the family to a minimum. Because it would be very negative for the primary breadwinner (in most families) to lose their job, they try to schedule the required jail time over the course of several weekends. In my case, I was required to serve three consecutive weekends. My lawyer advised me, in a general sense, that it wouldn't be wise to share with my fellow inmates why I was serving time. I apparently didn't manage that very well, as one inmate who I met while in-processing on Friday spent our entire out-processing time on Sunday making sure I knew that my remaining weekends wouldn't be so easy as this first one was.

By the time I got out of there, I was more afraid than I'd ever been before, so much so that I didn't see how I could possibly go back to serve my remaining non-suspended time. It was obvious that I wasn't especially contributing to my family, and I just figured that if I had a fatal accident they would be well provided for through my insurance policies. On the way to work that morning, I picked out an unprotected bridge support that would serve well as a place for me to end my life on the way home.

In retrospect, I think that I likely wouldn't have been able to go through with it. There have been a number of times in the intervening years that I have begun to wrench the steering wheel toward a potentially fatal hazard, or slide a sharpened blade along the skin of my wrist, only to decide against such a path for one reason or another. But I have never again tasted the level of despair that gripped me that day. I already had an appointment for the Sacrament of Reconciliation scheduled for lunch time, just to deal with the sin I'd committed against my family. Now it was going to be a sort of "last rights" sacrament for me. My quandary was deep: attempting suicide was considered a violation of the program, so an unsuccessful attempt was going to bring worse consequences; if I tried to kill myself I was determined to succeed. My options for help seemed limited: my counselor was on vacation that week, and we had not covered the contingency that I might encounter any sort of crisis in which I would need to speak with someone in her absence. I had a previous counselor with whom I'd started working prior to the determination that my crime had to be reported. I felt we'd worked together well, but she was not an expert on my issues and I was now directed to work only with my assigned counseling team; I also didn't have any extra money to go see her at my own expense. In any case, I didn't consider her an option.

After concluding my confession, Fr. Paul asked me how I was doing. He knew what a tough road we were on, and had referred me to my original counselor. When he asked so sincerely, my defensive wall immediately crumbled and I began to cry as my fear overwhelmed me. He insisted that I simply had to turn to whatever resources I had available at that point regardless of how the new counseling team might feel about it, and further explained that he had some resources available to provide emergency financial help in a situation like mine. So I called my former counselor and made an emergency appointment, by the end of which we had a plan of action that seemed better than the one I'd decided on earlier.

It still ended up being a hard road, but that story isn't for this post. Our pastor was reassigned about nine years ago, and yesterday I saw him for the first time since his Parkinson's diagnosis. We didn't get to talk much, as he was very much in demand among the attendees of the parish picnic. Still, it was good to connect with him again. Perhaps we should visit him again at his current parish soon.

Home improvement

In reality, we had a friend coming to do a piece of work at the house at 8:00 this morning. In reality, he was waiting at the house for me the other night, 15 minutes ahead of our meeting time, when I got home from work. Also in reality, my folded clean underwear was downstairs in our family room.

In my dream, it was 7:45 this morning, and my wife and I were still in bed when he arrived.  Except it wasn't this house; we were on the second floor of a row house. I went downstairs to the living room to throw on my clothes, then opened the front door.  Our friend was not there by himself; he had his family in the car with him. I went out to the van to invite them in, and another friend was in the car. I invited everyone in, and most of the family members were actually from the other friend's family rather than the one who was doing the work. Everyone walked into my row house, which was next door to my late great aunt's house on Hanover Street in Baltimore. Then my great aunt got out of the car and stopped to greet the people who had moved into her former house. I hugged her and told her how great it was to see her after so long, and she gave me a little bit of a hard time about not going to visit her. My wife and I were trying to get everyone fed breakfast before the power got turned out, except then we were replacing windows instead of doing electrical work. One of the adults (it might have been my wife) had a larger portion of the poached pears than one of the children thought she should have, and one of our choir members from our real life church (a deacon's wife) reassured her that it was okay, that's why they always cook such a large quantity.

Then I woke up.

In reality, the project went great.

Tomorrow's word

sapient \SAY-pee-unt\ - possessing or expressing great wisdom

Knowing the scientific name of the human species gave me a hint of what this word might mean, even if it does strike me as being a tad presumptuous - and sometimes far off the mark. I suppose I can double that observation (or square it) for our subspecies designation.

Two dreams

Early in the night, I dreamed that we had an intruder. The light shining into the bedroom from the rest of the house kept changing brightness. In my dream, I got up a couple times and checked the garage - which was our garage from the house I grew up in - and the rest of the house without finding anyone. When the phenomenon continued, I refused to get out of bed, from a combination of frustration and fear. I wonder whether this dream was rooted in my phone's behavior of the past week, as it would light up and darken in the course of the night as it lost and regained connectivity with the charger. Still, last night the phone was in the dining room and turned off, so I'm certain that's not what I was seeing through my closed eyelids.

After I woke to slice my wife some bread before she went to work, I climbed back into bed for a moment and immediately fell asleep, only to spasm almost right away and wake up from a dream that I had hit my head on the headboard.

Emotional flashback, with a new twist

I decided not to go on the bike ride I was planning for yesterday evening because I've had trouble sleeping after I ride, and I've been particularly short on sleep for the past week. Instead I took a short catnap before eating dinner. My wife wasn't hungry, and was getting ready to go to the grocery store. I wondered why she wasn't asking me to go with her, but am not so fond of shopping that I offered my company, plus I had my own errand to run. I had to find out what my options are with regard to my misbehaving phone.

She left before me, and I finished my meal and headed out to talk to the cell phone folks. As I suspected, my only real option at this point is to upgrade my phone, which will cost me less than any of the choices for getting a working phone without upgrading. When I walked out of the store, it was still a simply gorgeous evening, and I was feeling a strange combination: still really disappointed that I wasn't riding, still physically wiped out from lack of sleep, and . . . well . . . lonely. I've been feeling lonely a lot, lately, and isolated from all the people I should be closest to, who are most important to me. In some cases the distance has been physical, in others only emotional and relational, but this feeling has been my constant companion since we got back from our marriage encounter convention, and everything I've tried to do about it in any of my relationships has been either completely ineffective or only mildly helpful.

I decided that what I'd do about it last night would be to meet my wife at the store and help her with the shopping. I was a little concerned she might be finished already, but it seemed like she was putting together a pretty substantial list, so I thought I'd probably catch her halfway through. I found her car in the parking lot fairly quickly, though there was a moment I thought I had missed her, when I'd passed down the aisle I expected her to be parked in and found someone else's identical year and model van, but not ours. But I was pleased when I spotted her car in the next row, with a vacant space next to her. I went into the store and started looking for her.

I gave a cursory glance to the produce area, but given how long she'd been gone I didn't expect to see her there, and indeed I didn't.  This grocery store is large enough that it has a center row that crosses all the grocery aisles, and has a non-grocery section at the end of the store with furniture and various other household items.  There are basically three ways to cross the width of the store, then, the standard ones in the front and back, and the center row. I used all three of them, carefully searching the whole store, and couldn't find her. Of course, it's the twenty-first century, so I just took out my cell phone to call her, and realized that it was dead because I haven't been able to get it to charge.

I went back out to the car to try to get my phone to make enough contact with the charger that I could communicate with her. But there was some really old history at work in my feelings as I did. In the early days of our marriage, she would frequently lie to me about where she was going while she carried on behind my back.  On a couple of occasions I caught her not being where she told me she was. These feelings came back to me as I frustratedly struggled with my phone, wondering where she could be, not able to stop myself from at least wondering if there was a sinister reason she hadn't asked me along, though I quickly cast that thought aside. Finally I got the phone to connect long enough to see that she had previously texted me to remind me to go to the phone store; I hadn't mentioned before she left that I was still going to do that. Of course, she was texting a dead phone. I managed to snap off a text to her asking where in the store she was, careful to make sure I asked more specifically than a generic "where are you?" that might get me back an "at the store," after which I could just picture my phone dying and my being left not knowing where to find her. It turns out she'd been being waited on by a very slow clerk in the deli, where I hadn't paid much attention in my certainty she must be done there already. She still had most of her shopping yet to do, and so we worked together to get it finished. We were cashed out by a coworker (from India?) who moonlights there, who apparently sees my wife often but has never seen us together there.

There is a far more disconcerting set of thoughts and feelings that I had last night during this episode, with frightening implications in the present rather than being mere echoes of our forgiven (if not completely forgotten) past. And I am too ashamed of and disturbed by them to share them out loud.

If God isn't providing it, it isn't a need.
If God isn't providing it, it isn't a need.
If God isn't providing it, it isn't a need.
If God isn't providing it, it isn't a need.
          .
          .
          .

Today's word(s)

miscible \MISS-uh-bul\ - capable of being mixed; specifically : capable of mixing in any ratio without separation of two phases

I've encountered this one recently, and I thought it was from the WOTD.

While I'm here, I've looked ahead to tomorrow's column, too. It's obviously not a new word for me, but I did learn a little something about the French language. Also, here are a couple from today's Dictionary Devil (so don't read on if you're doing the puzzle yourself):

muskellunge /MUSK uh lunj/ - a large North American pike (Esox masquinongy) that has dark markings, may weigh over 60 pounds (27 kilograms), and is a valuable sport fish

This was a new one on me. And (in a mostly unrelated item:) I saw the last 15 minutes or so of a fascinating Nova on cuttlefish last night. Wish I'd seen the whole thing!

 oogenesis /O uh 'jeh nuh sis/ - formation and maturation of the egg

I was familiar with this one, though it took me seeing the definition that matched up with it to place it. I knew right away, though, which word was needed to complete the definition. AKA ovogenesis. 

Another reason God's approach is so important

Some people we're called to love are not able to apologize when they've hurt you even inadvertently. Our choices then are pretty limited: insist that they get a clue, or leave the relationship broken, or forgive them and love them anyway.

But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. - Rom 5: 8

Numbers

My blog hit count is now one number higher than my zip code when I was growing up . . .

Disregarded

I know it was just a matter of circumstances. I know it. I'm not going to escalate it into something bigger. But it's still going to take me some time to just process and deal with my feelings.

Today's word

wowser \WOW-zer\ - an obtrusively puritanical person

First time I've ever seen a WOTD in which they forgot to include the definition. Maybe by the time the reader clicks the link it will be fixed, but I lifted it from the word entry rather than the WOTD write-up. (Also, I don't find its background as interesting as the WOTD writers evidently do.)

Tired of being tired

So I thought I was on my way to my second consecutive decent night's sleep. I didn't know why my wife hadn't come to bed yet, but didn't really think anything of it; she's often up later than me. I'd told her I was coming up to bed, then got on the computer for about a half-hour first. But I was comfortably drifting off when I felt her phone bounce on the bed, then heard her snatch her charger to plug it in. I looked over, and she was clearly annoyed, and let's face it, with only two of us living here there's only one person for her to be annoyed with. Apparently she fell asleep downstairs and I should have come down when I actually went to bed and woken her up so she could come to bed, too.

Now annoyed myself, and with an angry wife lying next to me, my phone started in on its annoyances, lighting up and vibrating when the charger connection would intermittently make and break. It was pretty infrequent, but is the main reason I haven't been sleeping very well of late. About 90 minutes later I was still awake when Teri got out of bed, presumably for something to eat?  I thought maybe I'd finally drift off, only for the phone to light up and vibrate three times in rapid succession. After the last of these, I grabbed it angrily and just threw it at the closed bedroom door.  Then I got up to see what the damage was.

I was already going to have to replace that door, but now there's a fresh dent in it. The back had come off the phone and the battery was on the floor, but it went back together fine and seems to work as well as it did before I threw it in my exhausted frustration. I used the bathroom, then went out to plug the phone in where it couldn't wake me any more.

Teri looked shaken when I got out to the kitchen, and asked me if I had heard a loud noise. I apologetically explained what it was that she had heard, and we more calmly went back to bed, where I got another wonderful 5 hours of sleep. No dreams to report, though (he says thankfully, since they've been trending toward the disturbing in one way or another).

Thank you, God . . .

. . . for making me a praise and worship leader! I just love leading songs like this!

Today's word

depone \dih-POHN\ - to assert under oath : testify

Damned brain

In this dream, she was running some sort of maintenance or restoration service, and she was none too pleased to have been called out to our apartment. I can't remember what she was working on for us, but while she was there I was working on cleaning up a dinette table that we'd gotten from her. (Dreams!) I had been struggling with it, and had just gotten some combination of chemical and abrasive together that was cutting right through the surface markings but also the top layer of the finish. On the way past she had a look, and informed me that I was going to have to refinish it, which I already knew. She proceeded past me toward the kitchen to talk with my wife for a moment about the work at hand, while her business partner waited in the living room. She quickly finished whatever she was there to work on, and I asked her for a hug before she left. She shrunk back from me, shaking her head. Her business partner, who was also clearly a friend, indicated that she just wasn't ready. Our third-floor apartment faced the street, and I watched her put her equipment bag into her van and climb into the passenger side, determinedly keeping her head down as if she knew I was watching as her partner drove them out of the apartment complex and away.

I'm tired of dreaming. And apparently this morning I am channeling Monte (the Woot monkey). I need to keep yesterday's observation in mind.

I must trust . . .

. . . that God will provide for everything that I really need, rather than merely what I think I need.

Today's word

I'm beginning to appreciate WOTD columns even when the daily word has been long established in my vocabulary, when they include an interesting etymology, such as for utmost today.

Foiled again

When the phone woke me up at 3, I decided I hadn't slept long enough to go out and try to look for Perseid activity. When my alarm went off at 5, I could tell the sky was already too bright. But now it's obvious that there were too many clouds anyway.

And mustn't forget . . .

. . . that in the land I've left behind there are plenty of good people who think that life is just great there, who can't imagine there's anything better than what they cling to.

Immigrant

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. - Heb 11: 15-16

This brief section near the middle of today's rather long second reading can almost get lost amid the historically-oriented verses around it, but it is largely the point. To the degree we insist on longing for the country from which we have gone out, we will fail to walk in the freedom of the kingdom into which we have been delivered.

On occasion I have a hard time remembering that my citizenship has been transferred and being grateful that it has been. I find myself wishing I was back there, with its slavery to sin masked with a mirage of freedom. In such moments, his approach to life appeals to me briefly. Then I must remind myself of the damage my loved ones and I experienced as a result of living in the country into which I was born. It is better for me to not think of the land from which I have gone out, but when I do I must think of it with gratitude that it is behind me rather than with any sense of longing to return.

Today's word

tourbillion \toor-BIL-yun\ - 1. whirlwind  2. a vortex especially of a whirlwind or whirlpool

I like the specific meanings in the write-up, and even the predictable ending.

I feel as if my brain has atrophied.

Today's word

I'm only sharing this because of quip's interesting etymology.

Stupid

You'd think that by now I'd know the #$%(*^! difference between progress and a cycle.

Culinary snippet and rhetorical question

Life is a minestrone served up with Parmesan cheese
Death is a cold lasagna suspended in deep freeze

I know I'm weird, but I'm actually kind of fond of cold lasagna, though of course not deep frozen. But I'm wondering: what equates to a cold leftover pot pie, homemade two days ago from almost all processed ingredients - the onion was freshly chopped - with a side of newly opened cottage cheese that was dated July 15th but was fine? (I won't be eating out of that container of cottage cheese for long, and that pot pie is done for after tonight.)

Today's word

orgulous \OR-gyuh-lus\ - proud, haughty

What a great new word, and interesting write-up. However, I'd have like more of the etymology, a further glimpse of which is available in the word's dictionary listing. Also, this is the second time this week I've unexpectedly encountered the next word in the dictionary. (Come to think of it, I suppose I've never really encountered it expectedly.) (and another thing: why does the spell checker like "unexpectedly" but not "expectedly"?)

In a not-strictly-related tidbit from the same site: I never knew that asparagus was a member of the lily family.

Levels of tangible support

You’re just there to provide the reassurance that only someone’s presence, vs. “call me any time,” can provide. - Carolyn Hax

I thought this piece of advice for someone trying to support a cancer patient was more broadly applicable, and I know there have been times that I have offered the latter when I should have been providing the former.

A debt, or a longing?

Fifteen ago, my therapists carefully established the fact that I owed no one else my story. Anyone I shared it with in the future would be a matter of my own choice. The thing is, there is still one person with whom I wish I could share it. I'm not sure, though, what my motivation is.  Is it out of a desire for her to simply know me? Is it that I still wish for one more person - once so dear and so close to me, and whose opinion rated more highly with me than anyone else's - to affirm that this is not the central truth of my life? (I mean, on multiple counts: really??) Could it be that I wish for closure for these two different pieces of my past? Is it simply my longing to rekindle a friendship that I know I put beyond my reach when I allowed it to become what it should never have been, when I coveted more than a friendship with her?

At any rate, there is no doubt in my mind that to contact her again would be one of the most selfish things I could do. It would be an act of putting myself ahead of everyone I claim to care about, including not only my bride and our loved ones but also her and her family. I'm kind of glad that I'm not the guy anymore who was so compelled by my own feelings as to convince himself that it was okay to impose my own wishes on the lives around me. 

A more positive snippet

Lord, you are more precious than silver.
Lord, you are more costly than gold.
Lord, you are more beautiful than diamonds,
and nothing I desire compares with you!

Nothing. No lack in my life compares with the gift of God's love.

First snippets in a while

Be a happy man, I try the best I can
Or maybe I'm just looking for too much

See me.  Feel me.  Touch me.  Heal me.

Tired dream

This morning's dream was had something to do with some sort of yellow dust or debris on the shirt I was wearing, and finally getting it off before I walked out the door. I don't remember much of it, though.

This issue of not sleeping early in the night for one reason or another is getting really old.

Dreading the weekend, a little

Most of the times you've gone home without me I've been fine with that plan, and was at least determined to take advantage of our time apart. This time I wanted to go - just not enough to spend 3 days of vacation on it - so I've been feeling left out.

Partly, it's a matter of not having anything to which I'm especially looking forward for myself. I'm not psyched about cooking, I'm not having people over, I'm not going out to eat anywhere special that you wouldn't like. I am going to golf 9 holes on Saturday late in the day, weather permitting, but that's about it. I guess I should check the forecast for a nice long bike ride, but I'm not sure when I could get one of those in, seeing as I've made golf plans for Saturday afternoon.

(Your post earlier was a reminder that it isn't just the trip that has me feeling distant from you.)

But mostly I just feel disappointed that, even before you made plans to take the grandkids, you preferred to go without me rather than accommodate my work schedule. I'd have gladly taken Friday off, and am still a little put out that this wasn't an option. Of course, I know you want to take the kids, and I'm glad they're able to go, too. I'm still disappointed for myself.

Please make sure the family knows that the reason you've made these last two trips by yourself isn't that I don't want to be there with all of you. The younger two of the local grandkids seemed disappointed I wasn't going, too. Of course, I haven't seen the older two.

(okay, and you just had to play "crab" in our game of Words, didn't you, brat? Rub salt into the wound much?)

Coming clean

Okay, I confessed my clandestine video viewing to my wife last night, so I'm not keeping secrets anymore.

It's a good thing I don't have a bunch of disposable money. I really have better things to spend it on than skydiving. I could get a lot of new kitchen work done for what my USPA A License would cost.

Shhh . . .

I probably shouldn't be hiding my video viewing from my bride . . .  

Dishonesty in a dream

First, though, was the dream of the live-in cooking class. I was preparing dinner for the instructor, something with some simply seasoned pork chops, which were ready and looking succulent when the instructor came in, but I couldn't figure out what else was going to be on the menu. There was some sort of bread that was going to serve as an emergency side. Finally I grabbed what I thought was a can of corn, but it turned out to be a can of baked beans instead. The instructor grabbed a can of some sort of bacon product that he said would make this into the best bean side dish ever, and for some reason wasn't going to dock my grade for my lack of planning or execution.

The next dream had enough reality in it to really disturb me. I way overslept, as I hadn't been able to get to sleep because my legs were way tired from a bike ride (which was actually the case again last night). It was a Thursday, and because I'd already spoken to my boss (m.n.) about a similar problem the previous week, I felt like I couldn't just tell him the truth about why I was so terribly late as it would show that I don't learn from my mistakes. So, being the terrible liar that I am (in real life), when I called him I muttered something about Chicago rather than tell the truth. Then I felt awful about having lied to him, especially as he is a friend, too. When I got to work on what seemed in my dream to be the next day, my manager was in town, too, and it was clear that he knew I had lied and was going to give me enough rope to hang myself when he asked me what I'd had to go to Chicago for. In the absence of a real reason, I basically hemmed and hawed something about a family issue. A short while later my boss approached me to follow up, explaining that my manager wanted more information. I knew my job was on the line, and fabricated that my former son-in-law had applied for custody of my grandson and that we'd suddenly had to go up for a hearing. I tried to head off any further inquiries by explaining that we were still waiting to hear the results. My boss was skeptical, and insisted that he thought he'd heard the sound of golf balls being struck in the background of my phone call. Still, he let it go. Next we had a work dinner, and I was sitting next to my manager, who asked me again how Chicago had been. We were eating the food from my earlier dream, and in a completely irrelevant detail, the table for twelve had one empty seat from a missing coworker. We finished the meal and returned to work, but soon my friend Herb came and took me to an unoccupied room in the house in which we were working to confront me about my dishonesty. His grandson Jesse worked at the golf course, and had told him how much fun he'd had hitting golf balls with me. I was sure I hadn't been golfing when I'd lied about my absence, so now I was extremely confused. I was guilty, but not of what I was being accused of being guilty of, but now I couldn't remember why I'd really been absent and began to think that maybe I had been golfing. Herb was very upset about my lack of integrity, but didn't insist on an honest answer from me. When I got back to my work/dorm room that I was sharing with my manager, I reclaimed my bunk which I hadn't been sleeping in. I looked at a clock and was surprised to see that it was 2:30 pm on Thursday; no wonder no one believed I'd been to Chicago and back! A short time later he came in and asked me if I'd at least made any progress on the hats I was supposed to have been ordering. I had completely forgotten about this task, but I re-briefed him on my previous progress rather than admit that I'd dropped the ball, and picked up where I'd left off on that project.

I can't explain what a disorienting wake up I had this morning after this dream. I felt really disturbed and upset, as if my dream had been real. My body still hasn't returned back to normal, though I'm not sure how much of that is because I am so tired from my poor night's sleep.

A truly blessed life

I just watched my skydiving video, which came in the mail last week. What a great experience! I had a wonderful bike ride today, down to my grandchildren's house for a short visit. I'm developing new skills in old hobbies (that reminds me: time to practice). I am blessed to help others praise and worship God in ways that lift their spirit and draws them more fully into His presence. My health is good. I have steady employment. My wife, daughters and grandchildren love me, and I love them. I have good friends who also mean the world to me.

Contented sigh.

More than all of this, God loves me and has blessed me with forgiveness, and with the Holy Spirit to dwell within me and transform me.

Thank you, Lord, for all that you have blessed me with, and most of all for the gift of your infinite self! Help me to be more cognizant of how you wish to share your gifts and your self with others through me.

Lost for a while

Does the habit of recording our dreams help us to remember them better?

This morning in my dream my wife and I were in a new place, an Air Force base, and she needed to find where to meet a bus. She was certain she had the street name, and knew about where it was, yet we meandered about at length looking for it. Finally, after wandering about for a very long time, I located a publicly posted map of the base, which showed that we were on the opposite side of the grounds from where we needed to be. Also, the "street name" turned out to be more of a place name, and near the outset of our search we had turned away from where we needed to go just before reaching it. Fortunately there was a shortcut through the middle of the base that would get us back there fairly quickly.

In my dream, as in life, I had to stifle the urge to be critical over the misunderstanding.

Nap time dream

Driving in my dream on Grange Hall, approaching the intersection w/ Col. Glenn highway where it changes over to National Road (and may I suggest this may be the shortest "National Road" in the country), I was in the left lane and trying to merge right. There was a line of traffic passing by me in that lane, and I looked up and noticed the car in front of me had stopped. I suddenly started to brake, realizing I wasn't going to have time, so simultaneously started to move over into the left turn lane. I didn't have room to make it, though, and just barely bumped the rear bumper on the left side. Fortunately there was no damage. (But then again, it was a dream, so what if there had been?)

Sometimes the unplanned things are the *best*!

So I knew I had to plan music for praise and worship before first Friday Mass last night, and for the Mass itself. I wasn't exactly procrastinating on it . . . okay, maybe I was procrastinating on it a little. I could have worked on it Wednesday night after choir rehearsal or Thursday night after my ride. But I didn't take advantage of either of those windows, so I decided I'd work on the planning on Friday at lunch time. Oh, but the day after a challenging ride I get so hungry, so I went home early for lunch to eat instead of taking some of that time to plan music (though I did at least look up the readings for Mass when I got back). So I finally decided that I'd stop whatever I was doing at 4:30 and figure out the music, except a couple work things needed to be tied up at the end of the day. All right, DAMMIT, I procrastinated until the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT. Are you satisfied now? So at 5:30 I'm mad-dashing through the listing of music to pick stuff we haven't done for the last couple times we've been together, so things aren't stale, that will still bring a nice combination of invigorating praise followed by uplifting worship. I wanted to leave the house by 6:00 so I could be set up before the rosary started, but I didn't leave work until then. I called ahead and Teri had my guitar waiting for me to pick up, then I was going to swing by church and see if there we had a setting of the responsorial psalm for the day, which I was hoping for because it was such a musically oriented selection (from Ps 80). On the way to St. Helen, I realized I'd left my listing of song and page numbers on my desk at work. Ugh. Now I was going to have to take time to recreate it from memory when I got there; at least I remembered what most of the songs were, but trying to look up song and page numbers in the middle of trying to lead praise and worship is way frustrating (he says from experience), as it seems I can never find the song title very quickly in the numerical listing (oh, I'm going to make an alphabetical one! Duh! I do have them in a spreadsheet). At any rate, it was definitely going to be a better plan to remake my list before we started singing. As I was pulling into St. Helen parking lot, I realized: I didn't grab my church keys. If I didn't also have to recreate the song listing, I could have gone back to the house to get them, but now I was just running out of time. We'd just have to recite the psalm, no matter how much I wanted to sing it instead. So I headed toward UD, knowing that I had serviceable guitar and music stands with me, too.

Arriving at the chapel, I saw they were just beginning to pray the rosary. They use a format that I find more distracting than helpful, but I now had other things I needed to focus on anyway. I carried in most of my stuff with some help from Carol, then realized I'd left my bag of music (and my music stand) in the car. I opened my guitar case to let my instrument acclimate to the cooler temperature, went out and got my bag, then stayed in the back of the chapel where there was a convenient countertop on which I could work. One of my fellow CREDO team members (Marika) asked what setting of acclamations I was planning to use, reminding me of another musical need that I might have fulfilled had I actually gotten into St. Helen as I'd planned. As the other congregants progressed through the rosary, I looked up the song numbers I'd selected and wrote them down (again) so I could refer to them during the evening. Then I got out my music stand and started setting it up so I could simply carry it forward and set it in place when they were finishing and we could transition right into praising the Lord.

Now, I'd just used this stand on Tuesday night with no problem, but it is probably about ten years old now, and I've gotten a lot of use out of it - at least weekly - since I bought it. The carrying sleeve, made from some sort of heavy-duty baggage material, has been deteriorating badly over the past couple years, and we haven't found a suitable material for making a replacement for it. Still, the stand itself has been holding up fine. But now, the thumbscrew which secures the bottom tripod portion of the stand was apparently stripped out. It would not tighten. I tried to push it in further, pull it out completely, figure out any way of getting it to hold in place. Nothing doing. I looked through all the open doors around the chapel hoping to find a stand that I could borrow, and Marika looked a couple places I hadn't considered. There was none to be found. Finally, out of other options, I simply set the stand on its tripod, and the solution turned out to be the simple physics which God designed long ago. The stand just stayed where I put it, even with the thumbscrew loose.

The rosary was now finishing, so I moved to the front of the chapel and prepared to lead praise and worship for about twenty minutes, after which we usually maintain a period of silence before Mass starts. I could tell I was going to be one song short based on what I had selected for before Mass, but I had also chosen a postlude that I was going to just play instrumentally as needed as people were being prayed over for the Anointing of the Sick. The praise was okay, but felt a bit stifled and scripted. In particular, there is one attendee to whom we are going to have to speak about the proper order of sharing in a meeting. She has been blessed with a gift of prophecy, but does not seem to have any sort of regulator: she often speaks longer than she should and multiple times. Now that I am on the CREDO council, I will need to raise this issue with them, even knowing that they may determine that I am the one who needs to raise it with her, as well. Another who is not well established in the gift of prophecy shared something that we will need to weigh against scripture and church teaching; there was one word in it that she may have misunderstood, as it seemed to carry a different meaning than I think she intended. I do not usually tend to share when I am leading praise and worship, but because of these two circumstances I felt led to pick up my bible and share a passage from it. "As it happens," I opened to Romans 12 and shared a bit from it, looking the whole time for a good place to stop without becoming too long-winded myself. It was apparent when I'd reached the first good break point, and by that time it was about five minutes before Mass should have begun.

"Should have," because our priest had not yet arrived. In fact, I'm not sure if we ever learned what happened to the priest who was scheduled to celebrate Mass for us. Finally a couple of our members went to one of the dorms where they knew some visiting Marianist priests were staying, and were ultimately able to recruit one of them to come preside for us, and we'd finally get started about a half-hour late. Meanwhile, after maintaining silence for about 5 minutes and there being no sign of a presider yet. I began picking quietly on the guitar. After a while I looked up a song number that I hadn't planned on doing, but for which I had the music, and we began singing it together. At the end, I kept playing along, alternating spontaneous prayer and praise and worship with instrumental accompaniment, reprising the refrain a couple of times. Before selecting another song, I explained that this was one of my favorite ways to worship God, just using one song for ten or fifteen minutes and drifting back and forth between sung and spoken words and just music, and invited them to allow the Spirit to bring them along as I announced the next song, which had been suggested by one of the congregants sitting nearby. Someone then asked if we might pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, at the end of which our unplanned celebrant arrived (oh, I dunno, there might have been one more piece of music in there, I just don't remember this afternoon).

I had picked out some really nice music for the Mass, too, including a piece I'd never played before for our gathering hymn, Holy is the Lord by Chris Tomlin and Louie Giglio, which I cut short by one iteration in light of a) how late we were getting started and b) our priest having to be somewhere else after our Mass. I remembered enough chords from the Mass of Redemption to get us through it. We used Breathe (by Marie Barnett) for communion, and finished with Graham Kendrick's Shine, Jesus, Shine. There was this young lady near the front - maybe in her late twenties? - who is mildly autistic, but she was so excited as she danced in her seat throughout that recessional song.

So the unanticipated extra half hour of prayer, praise and worship completely changed the tenor of the evening. It was as if God knew that we all needed to just soak in His presence for that extra time. The scripture I'd shared before this was also just what we needed. Our unplanned presider's homily tied everything right together. He didn't have time to stay around to share the Sacrament of Anointing, so using the song I'd thought I was preparing for that time beforehand instead worked out perfectly. The whole evening became a reminder that no amount of "making good decisions," as important as that is, can ever substitute for time with Him, and that He will not allow any amount of our planning and preparation for how things should go to interfere with providing us what we really need, so long as we remain open to His plan even when we hit an unexpected and frustrating derailment of our own.

Note to self:

Remember how much you're enjoying this new experience of, when something goes wrong in a life around you, not wondering whether it could be related to an improper spiritual influence that you've introduced.

Remember, also, that this is only the slightest fringe benefit of making better decisions.

Today's word

footle \FOO-tul\ - 1. to talk or act foolishly  2. to waste time : trifle, fool

I'll definitely look for a chance to use this one!

"Taboo" relationships

I gave a skeptical cringe when I saw the link for 14 "Taboo Relationships You'll Probably Engage in Eventually," but my curiosity got the best of me. It turned out that ten or eleven of them described relationships that either my wife or I have engaged in, and about three of them described our own.

That didn't make them any less cringe-worthy, mind you.

Action heroines in dreams

In my dream, I was Jennifer Garner's closest friend, and felt really disconcerted about having to leave her in the bazaar (in Afghanistan?), where we knew she was going to be at risk. We had just put down one threat, but there was sure to be another. So, against orders, I circled back around the corner, but by the time I got back to her booth she was already gone. It was confusing figuring out what had happened, but apparently she'd been betrayed by a smug, middle-aged local woman. When my friend had realized what had happened, she had lifted the other woman up in a choke hold. No one was really clear what had happened after that.

But in my next dream, my friend had gotten away, except instead of Jennifer Garner she was now my very recently transplanted friend, who had escaped along with another pilot (yes, they were both pilots now), a shorter blonde woman, through the use of a spherical high-tech explosive device, about the size of a grapefruit. The government was trying to get the remaining explosives back for analysis, but the pilots weren't interested in returning them until they were no longer going to need them. At one point the blonde one had hidden a couple of them from her pursuers in an over-sized brassiere. By the end of this dream, my friend and her colleague were on their way back in to safety, bringing the remaining explosive devices with them.

An out of context quote

However bruised and broken you might be right now, search out one or two things for which you can be sincerely grateful, and focus on those things for a while." - Chuck Swindoll

I know I don't have this quote exactly right. It came somehow from a talk on fatherhood, but I only caught this tail end of the message that I've referred to here, so I'm not sure exactly where he was coming from with it. Still, it seems to me a good thing to keep in mind at all times.

Today's word

boffin \BAH-fin\ - a scientific expert; especially : one involved in technological research

I'd have never guessed at this one.

Less disconcerting

In my dream, our oldest daughter called us from the hospital to let us know she had a bit of a crisis that was somewhat sensitive. But rather than share the details, she asked us to talk with her husband about it. It seems that she and the kids couldn't return home while her husband was there. He was back with his parents while he tried to kick his methadone addiction. He was on suspension from his police job until he did.

The weird thing about it is that, in real life, our daughter is the one who has needed methadone as a long-term, low-level narcotic for pain management.