that procrastination is a bad idea.
News flash, folks!
Anyway, this morning I was in charge of the retreat breakfast for my wonderful Chorale, and I had a major meltdown as I flurried and scurried out the door because I hadn’t gotten my prep work done ahead of time. I overslept this morning, so my “get up at the crack of dawn” plan didn’t work, as it rarely does. I was tired last night after getting all m shopping done (but no one forced me to wait on it until late afternoon).
Normally on this blog I’ve had a book of the week, which I’ve either read or listened to. Of late I’ve been doing so much reading from news outlets online about the political situation that my actual book reading has suffered, although I do have a fascinating audiobook all loaded up and ready to go about the US role in the conflict with Al Qaeda and ISIS. (Sounds really cheerful, doesn’t it?) I’m going to try to finish that and report on it next week.
I keep thinking about the evening of Dec. 31st, the day our out-of-town company left. My husband and I had planned to go on our usual outing to the Denver Botanic Gardens “Blossoms of Light” exhibition. We’ve done this now for several years running, and as we pace down the pathways lined with beautiful lights strung imaginatively over the plants we try to talk about what we want to accomplish in the upcoming year. I wrote about this outing last year, for example, when we left it until the very last minute on the very last day, having to drive around for awhile searching for a place to park.
This morning I was driving across town listening to the radio and heard an interview with a Boulder man who survived Auschwitz. He was quite a character. No trace of self-pity at all. Flashes of very dry humor. Matter-of-fact accounting of incredibly horrible events, such as seeing his father beaten to death with a shovel for insulting a guard. Walter Plywaski was nine when Nazi soldiers came into his father’s pharmacy in Poland and told the Jewish family they had half an hour to leave.
I wrote about Garry Kasparov’s book on Vladimir Putin yesterday, and what he said about winners and losers also applies, in a sense, to the idea of the solstice. The minute you win, you start losing. The minute you lose, you start working to win. So it is with the two solstices: the summer solstice, June 21, is the longest day of the year, so where do you go from there? Only towards the darkness of winter. In the midst of winter, though, you hit that longest, darkest day–and there’s no place to go but up, nowhere to go but spring.
And isn’t the illustration for today’s post seriously cool? I get my images for the most part from a site called Pixabay. Their images are totally free. (You do have to be sure you don’t click on the images marked “sponsored images,” which are from a company named Shutterstock, I’m guessing a parent company. You do have to pay for those. I got the image for this website’s header from Shutterstock.) If you need images for a website or other application, give them a try.
And pay attention to the seasons!
I wrote back in October about my attempt to fully experience the experience of singing in the fall concert of the Cherry Creek Chorale, how I made a little pact that I would keep reminding myself about the present moment, and how greatly I enjoyed that Saturday night experience. (Hey, guess what? We have another performance this week! And it’s going to be great! Follow the link to buy your tickets.)
A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle, originally published in 1962, now available in a number of formats from many different outlets. Visit the author’s website at www.madeleinelengle.com/books/.
As our horribly-divided country lurches through the aftermath of this disastrous election season, I was suddenly reminded of the climactic scene in this book as I wondered what it would take to start to bring people back together. On the one hand, sometimes hard truths must be spoken, and spoken clearly and without apology.
But I’m thinking here more about how the hatreds between groups can somehow be mitigated. How can the militant white nationalist with his
The Bible is far more than just a storybook, a collection of moralistic tales. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fascinating lessons to be learned, along with the vastly more important doctrinal issues.
So, as I’ve said about five million times, I belong to a wonderful Bible study organization, Bible Study Fellowship International.
Shameless, shameless borrowing from the Gretchen Rubin podcast, this week live from Seattle. (A city that makes me very happy!) I plan tomorrow to talk about a much more serious issue in the area of happiness, specifically in the realm of the spiritual. And the following video isn’t going to make any lasting effect in your life. But for about five minutes you’ll have a smile on your face just because of the sheer goofiness of it all. (This video is about 100 times better than the ABBA original. And yes, I know I’ve posted this before, although I think it was over on the music page. Did you watch it then? Well, why not?)
Abba Goes to the Dogs
Well, three weeks from tomorrow the election will be over. I’ve kept a line between writing about my take on the candidates and writing about happiness and intentionality, so go to the P&P page for the first.
My point in this post is a more general application about the election, or indeed any contest: often the real work begins after the excitement is over.
