Okay, so it's 10:08 at night and Daniel just got out of bed and is now sitting on the couch watching Iron Chef America, on mute, asking us to explain the techniques that the chefs are using. How do you get upset about a 3-year old wanting to expand his culinary horizons?
10:12 - Daniel's back in bed - let's hope it lasts.
Despite not allowing myself to currently indulge in any suggestion that Food Network inspires, I still love watching it. Like most viewers, I'm continually jealous of the judges on these shows, sign me up! I'll eat what an Iron Chef cooks, any day of the week! When starting the season of Lent I was worried that I would not be able to watch the Food Network, in fear that it would be torturous. Happily, not eating solids is not that difficult and the Food Network is not torturous.
Today is Sunday and our boys are sick, we did not go to Church or to my in-laws for lunch. It was a relaxing family day that limited my exposure to people who do not reside at 7153 Osprey. Small Children only speak candor and sarcasm is lost on them. After being together 8-years, Beth and I understand one another very well, with Beth my candor and sarcasm is rarely utilized. What all this means is that I had no opportunity to see how the bruises below my waist have started to effect me. Tomorrow I will have to deal with employees, most of whom draw various degrees of sarcasm, my self-improvement does not exclude employees, tomorrow will be interesting.
The hard thing about filtering my mouth will not be "keeping it shut." The hard part will be deciding if it would have been better to have called out the elephant or joked around, rather than being quiet. Not being candid isn't as easily monitored as adjusting a cooking recipe or setting a room temperature. Monitoring will require a lot of speculation of "would my typical ways have made the situation better?"
I can't ignore the way that this came to the forefront of my mind and I am now certain that it carries more weight with my soul because of Lent, but how it effects me will take prayer and patience. Since I have not been eating I have been thinking more about the Lord and my relationship with him. I know not everything I do glorifies the Lord and I'm nearly always aware when my immediate actions are not for the Lord, but for myself. I don't consider self indulgence evil but I just know there always more glorifying options. I don't imagine that I'll ever be a zealot, but there is a spectrum of gray between the black & white of zealot & heathen that I happily subscribe to.
I don't believe that God is talking to me more now than he has in the past and I don't believe that God is talking to me more than he does anybody else, I think I'm just finding what I'm searching for. I'm listing for the white noise in a quite room that is always there: the internal hum of electricity in an appliance, the wind outside, a distant car, a floor creek, etc. Like the white noise, if you don't listen for God, you'll rarely hear him.
Listening can be scary, you don't always want to hear what is being said. If it is coming from God, how do you ignore it? Like my metaphysical kick in the crotch exposed, hearing something about you that you are so comfortable with but should work on or at least contemplate. It's not a situation that you just grin and bare, it takes your breath away and must be recovered from. It is scary and hard.
Random Notes: Started the day at 202, will end around 1700 calories. Also, I had some cream of broccoli soup from one of those Campbell Sippy Cans... mmmmmmm 10:57 pm and Daniel stayed in bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment