too soft...a life

first sunday of Lent yesterday...
dinner with gramps and dj
and a visit from their wild cat

and this morning noticing the dust on my window sill

both so seductively soft

beautiful in their own way
but not necessarily my favorites

kindof like being in the desert
40 days without food
surely not anyones preference

sort of  like..."survivor"
if you're there you are surely going to make it worth your while...
i remember talking to my daughter once about going on a survivor diet
eating as sparodicly and as little as they do on survivor...

i can't go away for 40 days
i live in this day to day life
year after year
and yet in these 40 days
i long for something different
more
...actually less
how is my life looking different in this Lent?
is it
can it be

i would love to go away for 40 days
to a monastery somewhere
maybe not a desert

but somewhere where life could be different for awhile
it's hard to make it different here...
in my world
yet this is where i have the control to do just that, huh!??!

reading henri nouwen for lent

i pulled out some of my favorite lenten reflections
and then picked up a bunch of materials from the back of the church
including the 'little black book'

thought all of that would help keep the journey holy, reflective...
but it was way too much
too cluttered

this lent feels like it should be monastic
i guess with all the monastic stuff i've been reading

less food
no meat
less stuff
more cleaning
and no shopping/acquiring...

i had already started nouwen's....'The Genesee Diary: report from a Trappist Monastery'
so i'm keeping on in that
and added his 'renewed for life' relfections...

seems much less cluttered
more right

also trying to get into and finish v's 'Continuuim Concept'....

both the monastic report and the continuuim concept
seem to be about balance
essence
being one, whole...present

i like that
understand that goal
feel it most of the time

i live in luxury it seems
a cushy, soft lovely life
having just the right amount of productivity, purpose,
creativity and cares
demands and freedoms

i don't feel imposed upon
what i do i do willingly and wholeheartidly
and even those things that frustrate
that i have no control over
i trust to tomorrow

when skype will once again hopefully work!
and the phone conversations will be successfully completed...

and if it's big
i know to trust in the Lord

like that $2,000 'blessing' that is out there
like the desire for a new bath and kitchen on the B side

sometimes my heart pains me
and tears fill my eyes
for want
for longing
for what has been lost

but it's all material things

what remains is good
gives me comfort

i would love to have new spaces for the kids when they come back
a clean place for our grandbaby
but i am going to be thrilled just that the kids do come back..
that the baby might...may...be close?!?

too much to even hope for...

but whatever happens
it is okay
if that little one is raised over seas in Europe
he will be raised well
and raised loved...

and that is my only desire