A new month and old problems. Why can't I change the contents of my slideshow? This seems silly. I wasted an inordinate amount of time the first time that I set this up and now I have repeated the frustration.
The good news is that it rained all day today and there is more to come. I am heartened by this for it means that the garden will not have to be completely abandoned.
It is also the first Sunday of Lent. Is the recession penance enough? Or would it be practical to see how we can alleviate the effects of same recession in our neighborhoods and communities; by reaching out and helping one another.
My local church is reading a book about helping to build schools in Pakistan, while here in our very own neighborhood the local schools need help; here in our very own state the budget, even though passed, is still in crisis. That same budget means that many services needed by real people are in shambles. I would like to see Lenten practices that would focus on our spiritual lives first and then if we are inclined to alleviate poverty do so at home.
There is a certain feeling of disconnection to this and it makes me discontented.
I am nonetheless grateful for the rain and will try to figure out how to make the software work as well.
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lent. Show all posts
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Ash Wednesday
It is the first day of Lent and the first daffodil is blooming! It seems too cold for me, but then I am not a plant! It is beautiful and fragile and I wouldn't have noticed it if it hadn't been for a friend's visit. While she waited for me to come to the door, she noticed it and pointed it out to me.
The daffodil blooming on the first day of Lent is a glorious symbol for the flower is a symbol of the resurrection, as appropriate for Easter as the lily is and full of hope and joy. Even though we seem still locked into cold warmth will come, the sun will shine and the world come alive again.
Then I decided to try to solve my computer keyboard problem--the space bar went back to sticking--by seeing if anyone in my neighborhood had a usable keyboard. Through the power of our neighborhood list I immediately had more offers than I could answer and two keyboards from one kind woman sit in my front hall waiting to be tried out.
All of this engenders gratitude and offsets the fear that builds when I listen to the news with its constant din of recession. Our community is not the world given us by the nightly news but our neighbors, our friends, our family. Our economy is more than the sum total of macro trackable events such as the stock market; it is even more than the sum total of all our transactions for it is about our interactions with each other on one on one encounters too.
I am more hopeful tonight than I have been in some time and am going to goof off and watch a movie.
The daffodil blooming on the first day of Lent is a glorious symbol for the flower is a symbol of the resurrection, as appropriate for Easter as the lily is and full of hope and joy. Even though we seem still locked into cold warmth will come, the sun will shine and the world come alive again.
Then I decided to try to solve my computer keyboard problem--the space bar went back to sticking--by seeing if anyone in my neighborhood had a usable keyboard. Through the power of our neighborhood list I immediately had more offers than I could answer and two keyboards from one kind woman sit in my front hall waiting to be tried out.
All of this engenders gratitude and offsets the fear that builds when I listen to the news with its constant din of recession. Our community is not the world given us by the nightly news but our neighbors, our friends, our family. Our economy is more than the sum total of macro trackable events such as the stock market; it is even more than the sum total of all our transactions for it is about our interactions with each other on one on one encounters too.
I am more hopeful tonight than I have been in some time and am going to goof off and watch a movie.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Super Tuesday
Or is it? After all the hoopla and ads quiet down will we be better served for having the primary process so early? What will be the encore since the election is still months away and several seasons too. I don't really like having these elections in winter, spring would be better. I hate hearing of last minute polls and would like to see them eliminated and I do wish that the ads would cease on Saturday night so that some quiet reflection time could be regained before the actual election. Tomorrow we will know, probably who the candidates are going to be in the Fall. Will it be anti-climatic?
It is also Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, the last day before Lent begins. In a very traditional Lent all the butter and eggs should be used up on this day--pancakes are traditional. Catholics will abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent. We used to abstain from eating meat on Fridays all year long--that shows my age.
I am not ready for Lent to begin. This is too early. Maybe that is part of the reason I am so grumpy about "Super Tuesday"--it is too cold and I just want to hibernate.
Hibernation would be a good way to use up the weeks of Lent--but wouldn't be very productive, either for my business or my soul. (And I would have to wake up to pay the bills in March--definitely something no bear or groundhog need worry about.)
So I will make pancakes sometime today--probably for lunch fairly soon and go back to writing. (The keyboard is going to have to be replaced--it sticks and that is too much of a nuisance. I thought I was a slow typist until I started to try to use the on screen keyboard for the spacebar. Type a word, lift hand, mouse to spacebar, hand back to keyboard. Especially when the word is is or a preposition, this is unbelievably time-consuming. Still it is an advance of Windows XP that this exists at all and it was interesting to poke around at it.)
It is also Shrove Tuesday or Fat Tuesday, the last day before Lent begins. In a very traditional Lent all the butter and eggs should be used up on this day--pancakes are traditional. Catholics will abstain from eating meat on Ash Wednesday and the Fridays in Lent. We used to abstain from eating meat on Fridays all year long--that shows my age.
I am not ready for Lent to begin. This is too early. Maybe that is part of the reason I am so grumpy about "Super Tuesday"--it is too cold and I just want to hibernate.
Hibernation would be a good way to use up the weeks of Lent--but wouldn't be very productive, either for my business or my soul. (And I would have to wake up to pay the bills in March--definitely something no bear or groundhog need worry about.)
So I will make pancakes sometime today--probably for lunch fairly soon and go back to writing. (The keyboard is going to have to be replaced--it sticks and that is too much of a nuisance. I thought I was a slow typist until I started to try to use the on screen keyboard for the spacebar. Type a word, lift hand, mouse to spacebar, hand back to keyboard. Especially when the word is is or a preposition, this is unbelievably time-consuming. Still it is an advance of Windows XP that this exists at all and it was interesting to poke around at it.)
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