So I’m playing this game called Whole Life Challenge. I don’t think the founders think of it as a light-hearted pursuit the way I do, but frankly I’ve been using it as a handy frame for behaviors I was already pursuing without being concerned about lapses. Stretching every day is a new behavior for me, […]
Today does not seem to be a day for easy resilience. Unsurprisingly, I got in late last night from a rock concert. So my precious sleep was whittled down to six and a half hours, not enough for me, because this morning’s appointment with my fitness trainer was unchanged. That work I did, and well…but […]
Is it not a good jest that when God gave us work to do as punishment for our disobedience in Eden, it was work that could never be finished, but only repeated, day in and day out, season upon season, year after year? Acedia & Me p195 Early this morning, in my first swim toward […]
[A]s the public sphere becomes increasingly chaotic and threatening, what we think of as freedom consists of retreat and insularity. Acedia & Me p125 I’m interleaving my thinking about Acedia & Me with reading Quiet, by Susan Cain. I just finished Cain’s discussion of how highly-reactive (-sensitive) people are often introverted — to damp down […]
Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.’ —Luke 15:31 “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” —Luke 10:41-42 I […]
Before I forget about it: when I decided on my Sabbath-honoring writing schedule, I didn’t pause to think about y’all’s likely reading-schedule experience. Since I’m causing my posts to appear in the evenings + many of you use the morning’s email to steer you over here, you usually read this the day after I write […]
Writing in the morning on a Saturday is challenging. Today it didn’t happen that way in the slightest, for example. One part, which I wasn’t thinking about until now, is that Saturday is a collaborative day at my house, not a solo day or a day in slices. Unless advance planning blocks out solo time — […]
The strategy is to have a practice, and what it means to have a practice is to regularly and reliably do the work in a habitual way. —Seth Godin, in Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build your routine, find your focus, & sharpen your creative mind, p42. Published by 99u. Emphasis mine. Yep, not there yet. An […]
I’m walking in the dark. No, that’s not accurate; I’m walking in the deep twilight. In the dark, my eyes have adjusted to the light that’s available, and I can generally see moderately far down the path I’m on. In the light, of course, I can see way ahead. But in the gloaming (excellent word, […]
I had my semi-monthly acupuncture this morning. (It’ll be in the afternoon next time. Mornings will be for writing!) One, I felt my hip-bones push my skin into the table. That’s not been a thing for quite some time. I gave it attention, just because it was different. Two, it wasn’t until I was back […]
