Reflections on my Sablogital*

Sablogital: (n) def: brief break from blogging, designed to encourage other forms of creativity, regenerate writing juices, engage in actual self reflection without posting it as if it is relevant to anyone else.  (origin: Larry D of acts of the apostasy).

Today, I testified in an annulment over the phone.
The taxes are due.
The bills are due.
My oldest is out all day so I've lost my driver.
A middle child has a low grade fever and is thus home.

I picked a stupid day to start a diet, i.e. no self medication by chocolate. ...sigh.

Happy New Year to all of you. I'm back.   There are scads of stories to share. 

First, I joined Small Stones, a private writing community where you write poetry every day for 3o days.  Poetry and I have never been friends, but it turned out to be a fun exercise.  I do however wince a bit because to me, a lot of time, the moments I tried to capture came out feeling a touch on the precious side. 

Here are a few of the pieces:



Day 1
Keeping Christmas

Every morning when she rises, she takes my hand. She leads me past the kitchen. She will not eat. She does not want television. She walks to the tree. "Lights. Turn the tree. On." she commands. Only then, can ordinary needs be met. She is not yet two. She understands the season better than us. Her eyes are awake to beauty. Now, she can have breakfast.

Day 2
Butterfly

At 15, she cannot see what she will become, she resents what she has been. She does not believe those who love her and does not believe others can or will. Even her favorite song betrays her longing and her fear. She only knows the cocoon and cannot dream beyond it. We are waiting, knowlingly, for her Spring.

Day 8
Trying to Read Joyce

I've decided reading Ulysses
is like going to the coffee shop.
I love the smell
I love the hearthy atmosphere
I want to be this wordy intellectual.
So I open the book and take a sip
and then I remember,
I have never acquired a taste for coffee.

Day 9
The crush of time
the rush of the morning
to find a shoe, a sock, a lunch
to stop a fight, load the car and put on coats
all ended in an instant
as an amber sleek fox loped across the back yard.
"If we'd been on time, we would have missed it." my daughter said.
and the day would have been duller and harder for it.

Second, as it is the new year, I am trying once again to get back into shape.  I joined a blogging round robin group, Writing to lose, 12 writers all seeking to shed a few by keeping each other honest.   So far, it has meant I've done 90 push ups and not eaten pizza or chocolate...and believe me, I wanted the chocolate.   We will go on a blog tour in this process and thus I will get to visit other blogs and have them visit me.  

Third, a story from daily life.

We all know the parable Jesus tells about the master giving three of his servants varying amounts of talents, ten, five, one. I always both love and find troubling this story. Am I burying my talents or growing them?  I would stipulate, when I spend hours on the internet, I am digging a hole for my talents to bury them.

When I surrender my desire to do things in favor of them, it is investing. I know how much a temptation vigilant sloth (checking the emails/facebook/blogs) and hyper sloth (reading reading reading) encourage digging that hole. The hardest part of trying to live an authentic Catholic life is knowing, if I want to do God's will, I need only look at my choices. Whichever one demands more of me, demands I surrender more, demands I serve others more, (and is thus probably harder), that's God's will. It is the humor of embracing the cross like a lover. Joy comes through sacrifice, but we have to chose to sacrifice joyfully.

Thus it is that I get the "BINGO!" sign from God, as my 7th grade son calls me over for a quick reminder that I have forgotten more than I ever learned about math. I was reduced to being the reference guide who could look up things in the index to verify his information. I did learn a few things about scientific notation but that won't mean I'll remember tomorrow or that I could apply it.

God is laughing at me. My son reassured me that I probably won't need to use scientific notation in my daily life at any point soon. Humility. A fruit of the Holy Spirit. Probably good for a 7th grade son and his self esteem as well. He just jigged out of the room bemused at his ignorant mother.