I'm back

I completely enjoyed the season of Advent.

For the first time in what seemed like a life time, I my schedule was open and free. When I was at home I could just be at home. Our house had one rule: No Multitasking. It was fabulous.

Christmas morning when Alex and I stumbled out of bed we opened the smattering of presents under the tree and watched the Disney Parks Commercial Parade. It was fabulous.

Christmas night the dull pain that had been nagging on the right side of my back all day turned into a sharp stabbing pain and I was up all night. In pain and sick. Long story short I ended up in the ER the next morning. Longer story short it turns out, I[probably] have "sticky blood." In other words blood is prone to clotting. Probably. This [probably] explains the odd shooting pains that I have been experiencing over the past several months.

I'm now on blood thinning medication. A shot. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who is also a nurse. Because while the Hematologist was confident I could inject myself with the "short" needle. He didn't take into account how much I hate needles. Hopefully I he puts me on a pill form of the medicine soon. I don't don't if Nurse Curly Locks can inject me every day for the rest of my life. Needles aside, the medicine has worked. I feel better. I'm not in pain. The clot that was in my kidney is probably gone.  They will follow me closely for the next six months to a year and see if this really is what they think it is. And figure out long term treatment options. Apparently once a person has sticky blood they always have sticky blood. [insert gratuitous call for healthcare reform here].

So today, since I was feeling 100 percent normal again I called my sister, the yuppie lawyer, and demanded she take me to the Museum of Fine Arts Houston to see the incredibly wonderful documentary, Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey. See this movie. Bring a box of tissues. Kevin Clash, the puppeteer who created and portrays Elmo is an amazing human being. Inspiring.

And since today is New Years Eve, I have to add that I am incredibly grateful for all of the people that have walked across my path this year. The opportunities I have been given have been amazing and challenging. I have gained new knowledge and I have gained a better understanding of who it is I am in God. I look forward to continuing my journey, to continuing to learn how to move over so that God can walk this path with me.

Note to Self....

Note to Self... if you are posting on a class discussion board on which you are asked to share your reflections on a particular article... don't say things like, "...this is obvious to anyone who has been educated in the 20th century..." or, perhaps worse, "As a member of a post-modern society..."

Because come to find out, what is obvious to me, looking out from my little bubble, isn't so obvious to others who have been educated. And some of the people sitting right next to me, aren't members of a post-modern society.

I think there is something to be said for sticking your foot in your mouth every once in a while. You might find out the world around you is bigger, more diverse than you imagined.

Upon Further Reflextion

Thanks to the encouragement of friends, I took a deep breath and wrote words, sentences and paragraphs inside a notebook this afternoon. One can be that heroic voice shouting out the injustice of quantifying the work of the soul feeling brilliant and unappreciated. Or one can stop putzing around in the shallows. The sheer waste of time — years spent dragging around personal measure of what is worthy of effort and meanwhile nothing is gained. Perhaps the situation is not ideal, but this is still an excuse to push aside distractions and be attentive to God's presence. No ruffles and flourishes of pure intention needed.

Flash Back

So I'm in this class. Is it a class? Its a pass or fail thing and you get one hour of graduate work credit and its called Spiritual Formation. Its odd. Being in a class called Spiritual Formation where participation is required. Every session we are given a different spiritual practice to practice. Every session we have to write a paper about our experience. If we don't complete every assignment or attend every session you fail.

Participation is mandatory. You can actually fail at Spiritual Formation.

I get it. I do. One should not go through seminary without being spiritually formed. Still, how helpful is it to compel a person to journal? Maybe I'm just whining because I'm not in a place in my journey right now where I don't feel like journaling. Its not that I doubt the worth of the practice. I have kept faithful journals in the past. I'm just not there right now. I'm not there and yet, because I don't want to fail I feel almost blackmailed into writing in a notebook. I don't think that's spiritually forming. Or particularly helpful.

It very much feels like my days as an undergraduate at a Baptist university. We were required to have 120 spiritual life points in order to graduate. You could earn points for your soul if you attended Convocation or volunteered your time at an approved religiously affiliated charity. Looking back years later, I don't think those things were particularly helpful or spiritually forming.

But that could just be me.

It's a smurfy computer...

I have a new computer. One that works. It's light. Easy to use. Cute. Cheap. All the things I told the sales person at the electronics store I was looking for. If you saw the Smurf movie (I hope you didn't) I have the same computer Neil Patric Harris used. I have a Smurf computer! Its so awesome to click on a program and have it just open.I can watch videos on Youtube again.

Speaking of, here is a really amazing music video of one of my new favorite songs. Bon Iver - "Holocene"

…and at once I knew I was not magnificent

strayed above the highway aisle
jagged vacance, thick with ice

I could see for miles, miles, miles

BON IVER "Holocene" from nabil elderkin on Vimeo.

school has started

School has started for both me and Alex. I wish I could say that the business of it all has kept me from posting, but it something way worse. My computer is dead. I used to brag on my Dell Notebook. I bought it wne I xtarted undergrade and it's been like the little engine that could ever since.... until it wasn't. I'm going to get a new one this weekend. I suppose a new computer every ten years isn't so bad.

Of course Alex wanted me to get a Mac until I pointd out that I could possibly get to PCs for the price of one Mac. Not that I'm geting two.... I was just pointing that out.

Still tonight we are off to the mall. Alex has been asking to be dropped off at the mall with a friend of hers. I don't think we are quite at that level yet. I'm just going to let them go to the Apple store by themseleves while I'll be at the Apple store looking at laptops and tring to figure out what all the fuss is about. Yes, we will be in the same store. No, we will not be together. No, it's not what Alex had in mind. And just for the record - I'm the meanest mom in America. Don't beliveme? Just asm Alex. She totally back me up on that one.