People are so quick to make a judgement -- how many assessments have we seen of President Obama's first 100 days in office? In a job as complex and all-encompassing in scope as Leader of the Free World, how can one truly understand and develop a plan and style in 100 days? How can we truly judge the first 100 days?
Not counting the actual day my position was eliminated due to the economy, May 31 was my 100th day of unemployment. I realized that and got to thinking about the first 100 days.
I imagine two warring slogans -- both partly applicable to this assessment:
Begin as you intend to go on
As in any endeavor, one should begin as she intends to go on. Only partly true here. Yes, I did begin by praying, by leaning on my Husband and friends and family for support. I put the situation in God's hands. And that is how I intend to go on.
However, I began an emotional wreck. I was in shock. Somewhat depressed. Raw. And I did not continue that way. I have my moments -- fewer and farther between -- when I feel despair or cry. But I have been able to find a certain peace as I begin to try and appreciate the time I do have to spend.
That leads to the competing idea:
Just now hitting my stride
I am finally able to say that I am caught up on laundry. I kept saying, "I can't believe that I've been out of work for xxx days/weeks and I'm STILL not caught up on laundry!" It takes a while to build new routines.
Monday is errands. Tuesday, laundry. Wednesday, groceries (it gives me time to study the ads and coupons.)
I shredded large boxes of old documents that needed to be gone through. I cleaned out closets. We had a garage sale! Yesterday, I purged my spice box of all old or never used spices. I had celery salt from 1995. I can actually close the spice box -- it's been jammed so full for so long with junk! You can move around in the basement.
I'm just now able to really look around at our home and reassess. I'm just now hitting my stride!
I'm still praying, leaning on friends and family, leaving the situation up to God. But I'm also finally able to work in some changes.
I will post this because, if I don't do it now, I might not get to it. My desire to spend more time going over my writing and work it more and polish it more is making my blog stay silent. So, I'll post before I don't.
The Faithful Alligator
1 comments:
Don't know if I should post this publicly or just send you an e-mail but here goes: It may surprise you to know that this is not shocking to me: the older I get, the more impressed I become with young people's faith (I've been mentoring musical faith for about 10 yrs. now and seeing great fruit) It may not surprise you to know that Catholics have been the leaders in being inclusive in the belief that all Christian faiths lead to God in each one's style and prayer. What is missing in most is the Eucharistic meal-the time when in our differences through the week, we gather to have our "food for the Journey"-not a reward for good behavior. You are correct in observing that due to our sizes in a lot of our parishes, we can't have each person pray-though prayer intention books are for the purpose of us taking each other's needs seriously. But it may surprise you to learn that when we have our small daily Communion services, we DO ask people to speak up if they choose and let us know the "prayers of the silence of their hearts".
A good thing to pray for others-I'll trade you prayers this very sunny Saturday. Your faith amazes me-you are appreciated and loved. "appletree"
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