More Bits That Dribble Out Of My Head

I don't know why it is so, but waiting for news in a hospital is horribly exhausting. 

The weather is most definitely changing.  Every joint in my body that might possibly be arthritic is achy and/or sore to the touch.

The wind out there tonight is roaring and whining,  and playing all manner of tunes on our wind chimes. The weather is having quite a jam session...

 Making birthday cards seems to take forever.  I enjoy it, but I never find a good time to do it, and I feel like I'm shortchanging my friends by not being painstaking enough over it.

Poetry will sneak up on you, smack you over the head, and sometimes reduce you to tears,
all AFTER it has forced you to sit down and write.

Poems you read will also catch you unaware.
That delicious, comforting knowledge
That you aren't the only one
Who feels that way...

After a very out of sorts week last week, this week still feels
wrong and out of order.

The order of the liturgy always puts my mind in order, and helps me focus my thoughts on things spiritual.


I keep thinking about one line from a song written by a local newscaster about the bombing of the Murrah Building.  "That's the way with April, warm and then so cold..."
It's true, in many places, but especially here that year.  The day it happened was such a beautiful warm Spring morning, and the very next day was cool and cloudy and gloomy.
All these years later, and thoughts of that day can still make me cry.  The day I became an Oklahoman.  The day that broke so many hearts, but showed a whole community reaching out in love to one another to heal the hurts.


Dog behavior is directly related to the way the owners treat them. You can always tell a happy, well loved dog.  He'll be the friendly one. If he's older, he may be a bit cranky, but still. His overall demeanor will be positive. 

Those trees that produce the winged seeds ought to be outlawed! We have a positive  plague of those God-awful seeds this year. They clog up gutters and ruin your downspouts.

Poetry some days just pours out of me.  Sometimes (usually) it's pretty much drivel, but sometimes, oh, sometimes, I hit a streak of getting a lot of good poems out one right after the other.  It's so odd.  I can't control the process, I just have to go with it and see what I get.  They usually don't follow any kind of set scheme, they are as random as the mind that generates them.

  Toying with the idea of reading at the library's upcoming open mic poetry night.  Of course this quote comes to mind : "A poet who will read his verse in public may have other nasty habits. " -Heinlein

The specter of losing my memory plagues me some days.  Like this evening, trying to tell a young coworker about the arias I have sung, when suddenly the names, the melodies, the words, just all evaporated. They came back, but it was a struggle.  Frightening.

And why should it be so that my mind always waits until nearly midnight to let loose any idea worth toying with?  Why is my choice always my sanity or my health?

Just spent a few minutes enjoying a visit with a young man who has returned to town after being away for college.  I think I enjoy such visits not only because it's good to see our young people come back, but also because some of these young people remind me of the nieces and nephews I almost never get to see.

Liturgies

Liturgy is a noun that refers to the prescribed form of public worship as set down in the Book of Common Prayer, for instance, or any book or order of worship designed by any denomination. 
Liturgy is a way of doing things.  An order, made with conscious design, to get us together and keep us together as we worship. 
I find that many aspects of my life besides church can be bound by liturgies of their own.  Certainly, having a set order to things that need to be done regularly is comforting, and often helpful.  My daily lesson plans were in effect a liturgy for the conduct of the school day.  Things go in a certain order for a specific reason, are done a certain way, with certain words, to keep the lesson consistent, and in part, to comfort the children. 
Liturgies are comforting.  You know what to expect and when it's coming up.  They have the disadvantage of letting your brain coast on occasion, and you really shouldn't be doing that in church, the idea is to focus on worship.  Same with the lessons at school.  If we got too routine, the kids could respond while half asleep, and that isn't doing their minds any favors.  So, for different days and seasons, liturgies change.  Just often enough to keep you on your toes and paying attention.  A response may be different, the order changed just a little, just enough to keep you from getting TOO comfortable.
Daily life is a whole series of little routines that could become liturgy, if we use them as a way to be grateful for the little things we need that are provided for us daily.  If you have children, and/or pets, you know the importance of routine and order, and the strict adherence thereto, in getting anything accomplished, especially in the morning. 
At our house, we have the liturgy of the Cat in the Morning.  She must get up and get under Matthew's feet as he is getting dressed, just to keep his coordination sharp.  She must then see that he gets out the door and off to work on time.   Then she must make sure I am up, and the bed is made, so that she can have her breakfast.  After that, she makes sure I leave for my walk, and then goes to take her morning nap.  Having to work around the cat's liturgy of gratitude for her people and her food gives me a set order of things to accomplish while still half asleep, and serves to get me out of bed, and thinking about the day ahead, and about the nature of life, the universe, and everything.  
When I taught school, daily routines were the glue that held our collective sanity together.  Taking roll, saying the pledge, going over the day's seat work assignments, making sure homework was collected, taking the lunch count, these things got us together and started on our day.  They got us focused on the learning to come. 
Those common experiences, those routines, or liturgies, cemented us together as a community in school, in our homes, and in our places of worship.  There is an old joke I always think of when I muse about liturgy:  How do you find the Episcopalians in a Star Wars movie?  Anytime somebody says "May the Force be with you." they respond "And also with you!" 
Our responses are comforting and familiar.  (Though those of us who do Rite I will say "And with thy spirit.")  The Pledge of Allegiance is comforting to some people because it is something they learned in childhood, something they, and everyone they went to school with knows by heart.  It is common to them, even if they have nothing else in common.  Psalm 23 is something that is very familiar to many Christians and Jews as well.  It has been memorized by many, and is a source of comfort.  It is something those who know it have and cherish in common. These things bind us together and comfort us.
If we look at our daily routines with an eye toward gratitude for all we are fortunate enough to have, they can become liturgies, our lives can become worship even in the smallest details.  If we look at our interactions as a community, whether at work, worship, or school, we can make all those occasions a prayer of gratitude for our shared lives, for the knowledge that we are all in this together, all coming at life from different angles, but all of us here, and not knowing how long, and trying to make the best of it.