achievement

Happy Easter!

I had grand visions of really buckling down this week and writing daily posts. Finishing Lent on a high note! But I spent my time having coffee and/or talking on the phone with people instead. 

Yay for friends. And who said Lent was supposed to end on a high note? It was during the pandemic that I realized that the traditions around Easter doesn't match the biblical story of the resurrection particularly well. Jesus may have risen on the third day, but it took his followers a lot longer than the weekend to figure out what to do next. Not least because they did not believe the women, but even if they had: grief takes time.

Nevertheless, I can claim some Lenten success: I posted here quite a bit (if not exactly daily), lost 10 pounds, more or less got my 12k steps/day, only ate meat once a week (not counting bites of my meat-lover-son's meals, ha), tried a bunch of vegan recipes, and Dan and I have been doing our exercises in the morning (lucky for me, he's a routine-lover). I have been Feeling Better. 

And, none of those projects are complete: I still have 10 more pounds to lose, more exercise to do, the pile of books, more to write. The ever-present Job I Am Definitely Getting Someday. 

On the environmental front, all signs point in the direction of slow down...reduce...simplify...embrace "enough"! And even those somehow become tasks for the to-do list. 

Unexpectedly asked the wrong question (for example, "and how are you?"), Feeling Better occasionally collapses into despair. 

So it all feels very unfinished.

Speaking of which...last year's One Spirit workshop I didn't quite get through was "Awakening your True Voice" by the delightfully New York character Jean McClelland, from whom I learned at least this much: we should stop trying to "take" breaths and instead learn to "receive" them. Even when we don't actively try to breathe, our bodies will do it for us, because: we are alive. We can't consciously control the diaphragm, and the stomach / chest / shoulder muscles we tense trying to help it along generally just work against it. The thing to practice is not breathing in, but  breathing (/ speaking / singing) *out*, trusting that the in-breath already there.

There's a spiritual / psychological / emotional equivalent to this lesson...like, an invitation to move from taking control to giving attention? I'm not sure this is "faith" but the concepts are certainly related.

My daily prayer for some time has been the Ignatian suscipe,

Take, Lord, and receive all my liberty, my memory, my understanding, and my entire will, all I have and call my own. You have given all to me. To you, Lord, I return it. Everything is yours; do with it according to your will. Give me only your love and your grace, that is enough for me.

Which I've had my difficulties with - "Lord," ugh, and also the "enough for me" bit at the end smacks of false humility (maybe I'll understand it someday?). But:

Love - may I be a gift to those I encounter in this life. 

Grace - may I not fuck things up too much on my way through. 

That's pretty much everything. All the rest will happen if it happens.