Check-In

Check-in
Physically – Pretty good – arthritis in my thumb is slowly improving
Emotionally – Flat
Mentally – Alert
Spiritually – Solid

Gratitude
1. Asparagus is beginning to sprout
2. Mental stimulation by working on the books at church
3. There hasn’t been any new violence internationally in the last day

My Enough List for the Day (three things I will do/focus on that will be enough for this day)
1. Exercise – 10,000 steps
2. Book the money and deposit the funds for Bethany
3. Wash, and dry all our clothes, and fold and hang my own.

Curiosity (something I’m puzzling over or wanting to pay attention to)

Working of something for writing class

An Intention

Focus on healthy food, not just calories

~

And the evening list, which I’ve been very irregular with. Oh well:

Three things to celebrate about the day:
1.
2.
3.

One thing I could have done better

On Sunday

It was on the Sunday

that he pulled the wheat.

They arrived with flowers,

shuffling through the dawn

as the dawn snuffed out

the last candles of night.

Their faces betrayed their belief

that yesterday would always be better

than tomorrow,

despite what he said.

He would not say it again,

so why bother to believe him on that score?

And the flowers,

they too were silent witnesses to disbelief.

Like the grass,

they were cut off from the root,

the bulb, the source of life.

He was the flower they cherished,

the flower now perished

whose fate the lilies of the field,

now tight in hand,

would re-enact.

So when they passed the crouched figure

at the edge of the road,

they thought little of him,

scarcely seeing his form through their tears.

Had they looked even a little,

they would have seen a man

letting grain fall through his fingers,

dropping to the earth

to die and yet to rise again.

It was on the Sunday

that he pulled the wheat.

From: Stages on the Way, Iona Community Wild Goose Resource Group

Wonder #rethinkchurch

This year for Lent I’m (again) following the posts from photo-a-day at #rethinkchurch

 

Hope #rethinkchurch

This year for Lent I’m (again) following the posts from photo-a-day at #rethinkchurch

On Friday

It was on the Friday that they ended it all.

Of course, they didn’t do it one by one.

They weren’t brave enough.

All the stones at the one time

or no stones thrown at all.

They did it in crowds…

in crowds where you can feel safe

and lose yourself, and shout things

you would never shout on your own,

and do things you would never do

if you felt that someone was watching you.

It was a crowd in the church that did it,

and a crowd in the civil service that did it,

and a crowd in the street that did it,

and a crowd on the hill that did it.

And he said nothing.

He took the insults, the bruises,

the spit on the face,

the thongs on the back,

the curses in the ears.

He took the sight of his friends turning away,

running away.

And he said nothing.

He let them do their worst

until their worst was done,

as on Friday they ended it all…

and would have finished themselves

had he not cried, “Father, forgive them…”

And began the revolution.

From: Stages on the Way, Iona Community Wild Goose Resource Group

Awake #rethinkchurch

This year for Lent I’m (again) following the posts from photo-a-day at #rethinkchurch

 

On Thursday

It was on the Thursday

that he became valuable.

He hadn’t anything to sell…

not since leaving his hammer and saw

three years earlier.

Needless to say,

he could knock together a set of trestles

or hang a couple of shelves at the drop of a hat,

no bother at all.

But he wasn’t into making things,

Not now.

He was into…

well…talking, I suppose,

and listening

and healing

and forgiving

and encouraging…

all the things for which there’s no pay

and the job center has no advertisements.

So his work wasn’t worth much.

Nor, indeed, was he.

For, not being well-dressed

or well-heeled or well-connected,

he wouldn’t have attracted many ticket holders

had he been put up for raffle.

But he had a novelty value…

like the elephant man or the fat lady

or the little person at the circus.

Put him on a stage and he might be interesting to look

at.

Sell him to the circus

with the promise of some tricks

and there could be a silver penny or two

or thirty in it.

It was on the Thursday

that he became valuable.

From: Stages on the Way, Iona Community Wild Goose Resource Group

Spirit #rethinkchurch

This year for Lent I’m (again) following the posts from photo-a-day at #rethinkchurch

 

 

On Wednesday

It was on the Wednesday

that they called him a wasteful person.

The place smelled like

the perfume department of a big store.

It was as if

somebody had bumped an elbow against a bottle

and sent it crashing to the floor,

setting of the most expensive stink bomb on earth.

But it happened in a house, not a shop.

And the woman who broke the bottle

was no casual afternoon shopper.

She was the poorest of the poor,

giving away the only precious thing she had.

And he sat still

while she poured the liquid all over his head…

as unnecessary as aftershave

on a full crop of hair and a bearded chin.

And those who smelled it, and those who saw it,

and those who remembered

that he was against extravagance,

called him a wasteful person.

They forgot that he also was the poorest of the poor.

And they who had much

and who had given him nothing,

objected to a pauper giving him everything.

Jealousy was in the air when a poor woman’s generosity

became an embarrassment to their tight-fistedness…

That was on the Wednesday,

when they called him a wasteful person.

From: Stages on the Way, Iona Community Wild Goose Resource Group

Deny #rethinkchurch

This year for Lent I’m (again) following the posts from photo-a-day at #rethinkchurch