The cat and the spider

Three beautiful things:

1) Pasadena's mountains when it is windy (they are shockingly close and clear).
2) Silence
3) a drop-by from my friend today

yes, I had a good ol' fashion drop by - no call, no warning, just a knock on the door. I love it! I used to do that a lot, it was the way we were raised. Then one fateful day someone told me "it's not a good time" and I suddenly realized that other people weren't raised to always let in a guest regardless of the state of the house or their own feelings. And in some ways that is good - I mean, it's awfully Stepford to expect to keep a constantly clean house and have lemonade and cookies on hand for anyone who may drop by (or worse, have a pig sty and offer nothing). But I so miss the spontenaity of the drop-by. So I am thrilled I got one today.

And from someone whom I don't see nearly often enough at that. And he brought a gift! I mean, how much better could it get?! Wait - it can - the gift was pie filling! Yeah, baby, a drop-by that leads to pie. I don't think there's much that can top that.

So happy Epiphany everyone. I had a half day silent retreat this morning. Those things always bring up a lot of crap - I was telling the leader that I always start emotional vomiting (but at the end I hadn't spit it out yet, so it was not feeling great). I wonder if I did silence and journaling more often if perhaps I could get past the initial self-judgement and pity party phase and into something a bit more substantial. Probably. I'm going to try it this year, I hope.

But one thing that is definitely true, that J's been telling me over and over, is that I am not happy. And I've been okay with being not happy. But I think I'm not okay with it anymore. I'm tired of being discontented. It's no fun. But the thing I'm discovering is I can't make it better - I can't get happy by just trying harder. No, but hopefully some other things will help, like I'm going to keep making myself think of beautiful things and I'm going to ponder the lack of control I have over anything in life. Most of what makes me unhappy is stuff I want more control over (school curriculum, money/bills, my body size, the future). Well I don't have control over it, nor many other things that I think I do. So I'm going to work on getting over that. And in the process perhaps I'll find that I'm getting happier.

I was very taken with our Taize song today, we did the one about "In God alone my soul can find rest and peace, in God, my peace and joy; only in God my soul can find its rest, find its rest and peace". And I was thinking, well, maybe I can't find joy yet, but if I can give over to rest and peace, then perhaps joy will follow. It's all in God. So our work is not to make ourselves restful or peaceful or joyful. Our work is to find God and be in God, and the rest will follow.

Oh, that's profound, isn't it. Go me. I gotta listen to myself more.

May this day be blessed and may the Theophany present itself anew in your life.