There’s nothing that nudges me back to the blogosphere than running into a couple of people I’ve never met who say they read my blog and really enjoyreading it. So, I tip my figurative hat to you two ladies and, alas, here I am.
It’s been an exciting and enjoyable day. I have started week 2 of my fall classes (toward my Counseling Psychology degree). Tuesdays I walk to school (around 6 miles roundtrip) in girly shoes, that is, not Seattle trekking shoes. This inevitably means I start and end the day with blisters that encompass my entire heel. What can I say, I care about fashion over function sometimes.
This year I have a handy-dandy little iPad, which means there is NO excuse to take my laptop. Consequently, I end up filling that hole in my satchel with more library books. Classes were good. Dan Allender is Dan Allender. Go figure. I both appreciate him more and much more easily dismiss him this time around—and I mean that in a good way.
One of the books I used to fill that hole in my bag is called, Glimpses of Grace by Madeleine L’engle. I have hoped to find an e-version of this book, but it doesn’t exist. Yet. My search for this book began with a generic search for a devotional, meditative, or spiritually centering resource for the—how to say it—middle-aged Christian woman? I specifically wanted to avoid (although they can be great and effective for their intended audience) the Christianese books, the over-zealous transcendent abstraction of the spiritual life. I wanted…well, I wanted something almost boring. Not calling me out or up toward some way of being outside of me. Rather, a voice that settles me in my own skin and location—in its quietness and simplicity, draws me into my body, my self, my feet, the ground I’m standing on, the feeling of the keys on my fingertips as I type.
There seems to be very little on the “Inspirational,” or “Christian Inspiration” bookshelves geared toward someone like me—a woman on the verge of 30 who might actually want to be 30 (instead of a perpetual twenty-something). Celtic spirituality refers to this next phase in a woman’s life: the stage of the mother (preceded by the virgin and followed by the crone or widow). (I’ll write more on celtic spirituality as these three stages seem to come to mind often.)
Back to today. L’engle’s “glimpse” for the day was about work, play and presence. A child, she says, works very hard at playing. She’s entirely focused on it, so much so she becomes unabashedly playful. As adults, we split work from play, such that we don’t enjoy our work and we only half-ass our play.
On my walk home from school, I am feeling dehydrated from not drinking any water all day. I’ve been walking through downtown Seattle traffic, breathing in the ever-so-fragrant smog of cars. I’m sweating in very unladylike places. My feet are dry, splitting and blistered in several different places. I have a mile or so left.
And then I see these little fountains of water shooting up out of cement at the South Lake Union urban park. My mind sparkles with the image of running through the fountains. Quickly, I shoot it down. No, I should get back. My feet would be wet and they’d have to dry and then I’m getting hungry too, etc. Still, hmmm… Game time decision, I turn sharply toward the fountains, drop my bag, slip my shoes off (carefully, as not to puncture the enlarged blisters), and sink into the stream of the cool water.
All I know is, a couple minutes later I am aware that my skirt is almost entirely soaked, my shirt has several wet spots, got some drops on my glasses, and I’m wearing a large smile, giggling internally (maybe externally too?).
One of the kids who’d been playing further down has joined me.
Ah, yes, this is play….
