Michael teases me about my goals and my goals having goals and possibly being a little obsessive about this process. When I tell you that my current goals list (scheduled for completion two years from now) is 39 PAGES long, it's possible that you will agree with him. I think I agree with him, come to that. But, it's what I do, and it harms no one.
Much of those 39 long pages is just a rephrasing (operationalizing, in annoying social science lingo) of the amazing discovery that I get to make the rules now. So I blather on about ontological frameworks and questions like "what is health?" and try to figure out what that means for me and how I might get there. Then I move on to "what do shelter and haven mean for me?" and then I muse about how I want my house to be THAT, whatever that is. On and on through "scholarship" and "community" and "creativity".....
Seriously, you ask????? Yeah. Seriously. It's a wonder I get by with 39 pages ;)
"Thou shalt not freak out" is one of my new rules -a rule I have a great deal of trouble following, I might add. It's easy to focus on the not-yet-done(kitchen ceiling still an embarrassment) and the impending disasters waiting around the corner (I refuse to even speculate here.) Would it be easier to stay centered in the moment, not borrowing trouble (as Jill so frequently has to caution me against), if I had some kind of spiritual practice?
Probably. Sundays without church still feel a little ungrounded to me. On the one hand, I certainly don't have time to sit somewhere and be annoyed (occasionally even enraged) for an hour. They ought to at least pay me, if that's going to happen. On the other hand, I miss the liturgical punctuation to the week. I miss the days when there was a community that I loved there. I miss the good and wonderful things that Catholicism can offer and seems to so intentionally have turned its back on. (Thou shalt not end sentences with a preposition is apparently not one of my rules.)
So, granting that I can't "do" Catholicism in its current form, is a fledgling/returning yoga and meditation practice enough? I think it could be, but it isn't quite yet. I do think, though, that the lack of a spiritual dimension to my life (What is spirituality? That will be good for another few pages of musing!!) is part of why the weekends are so formless -not that that's the biggest problem of a lack of spirituality.
Maybe it's time to go on a retreat somewhere -even if just with a tent,a book, and my journal. And possibly a bottle of wine ;)
1 comment:
There is no actual grammar rule against ending sentences with prepositions. To quote Winston Churchill on that point, "This is arrant nonsense, up with which I will not put."
As to a 39-page statement of goals, holy Mother of God, get thee to an editor, go! You get one page for a three-year NIH grant; given that life is a little more complex than that, I could see perhaps five pages. But anything more requires pruning. Or prioritizing. Or both.
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