Here is the truth: I will not wear the dresses I wore for either of my daughters' weddings ever again. I just need to give them to the thrift shop, while they are still in style..
And I will not read the magazines I've saved. Not even Martha Stewart Living. I will not make a lampshade out of photocopied autumn leaves or pillows out of ribbons. These are such painful thoughts that I cannot continue to write about them.
I think I will not use the stone bread baker I bought some years ago and have never used. It holds a long loaf that would feed a family of six with some left over, and there are only two of us. I make four smaller loaves every two weeks, and freeze them. One long loaf would sprout penicillin before we'd half finished it. I need to give that bread baker to the church for the Christmas Fair.
I will not discuss here the eight or nine teacher's copies each of Pride and Prejudice, Clarissa, Gulliver's Travels, Tom Jones, and every other novels of note from within the tradition of western letters. It is not my place: they are Q's. Besides, there is no need: somebody will just haul them away someday, and we'll be fine with that. Because we'll be dead.
This is the time when we want to shine the house, want to see vistas of empty, clean space within it. We want to look through sparkling clean windows at the garden outside, to have a place inside for everything and everything in its place. We want this, but all the duties that fill our days continue to fill them, and we are weary at the end of the day. We need to find a place of spiritual peace with this fact. Not all of our clean, crisp ideas of order will come true.
At least, not all of mine. They never do.
Night Prayer
Lord,
it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.
The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives
rest in you.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,
and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,
new possibilities.
In your name we pray.
Amen.
-New Zealand Prayer Book, p.184
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CORRECTION: In last week's sermon prep eMo (the second part) I mistakenly referred to a malaria virus. A kind physician wrote in to inform me that malaria is not a virus, but a parasite. It can be seen under a normal microscope; a virus cannot. I stand corrected and informed, and apologize for my error!
AIDSWALK/NY: I haven't reached my fundraising goal yet! I want to hit $5,000 and am not yet at half that, a bit more than a fortnight before the walk. Pride goeth before a fall, of course -- so then, let's let this not be about me. The need is great, even if I'm not half the hotshot I thought I was.
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