Overheard

One of my favorite parts of my college's newspaper was the "Overheard" column--random comments collected by the newspaper staff and then inserted into the paper, purposefully with no context because, of course the lack context makes the comments even funnier, and often delightfully more suggestive. In homage to that profound formula, I think I will offer periodic "Overheard" snippits from my household and a little piece of my stream-of-conciousness that followed.

Here is a sampling from last night:

"Mom, I think you should be a priest."  --Um, okay . . . well . . .

Pouting 8-yr-old son enters house, shutting door a bit too loudly,"All they want to do is make mud pies and dig for worms" -- REALLY? That is a horrible thing for a group of boys to want to do.

"You know, bacon is really the best thing there is for you" --Honey, I couldn't agree more.

Mom to 8 yr-old wrapped in towel after shower dripping wet on the carpet, "Go get some underpants on silly" 10 yr-old brother added, "Yeah, because we don't want to see that." --Right. Because we never see that in a house of boys.

Psalm 139 Part Deux

Okay, so if God is indeed shining light into all of my darkness, I suppose I should fess up that while typing the previous blog I ate an entire bag of Twizzler Cherry Nibs. And since the blog wasn't that long, and I spent no time editing it . . . yeah, even with fuzzy math the calculation of minutes typing x number of nibs doesn't really come out in my favor.  . . 

Psalm 139

So at Mass on Sunday, our Responsorial Song was based on Psalm 139. A hymn that I particularly like, and have sung many time before, but this particular time I think I actually listened to the words for the first time--not just how they sounded (which I think I do a lot), but what they meant (which I think I don't do enough). Regardless, I was awe-struck for the first time thinking about what it really means if God knows, truly knows all of my thoughts. What it truly means for Him to shine a light even in my dark places, even when I would rather he not. It is at once scary and oddly comforting. This idea of God seeing into all of my darkness because He is already there, would have, once upon a time, frightened me, but while this idea does give me pause, it is quickly followed by great hope and peace. For if God ALREADY knows all of my yucky parts--then I have nothing to hide--especially from myself. So if I am impatient, or judgemental, or intolerant--no point in rationalizing it to myself--God knows. How profound. How simple. And it strikes me--isn't this one of the first things we teach our children? How easily I forgot . . .

Down to Bizness

Okay, now that I'm finished with all of the pre-emptive explanatories . . . the thing lately on my mind is when really smart authors quote other really smart authors. This behavior is very disturbing to me as it drives home the point to me that I am most definitely NOT one of those aforementioned "really smart authors." Perhaps an illustration will help--while re-reading an excerpt from Kathleen Norris' Amazing Grace the other day I noticed her quoting a few pithy lines from Emily Dickinson (okay, that was redundant). This was worthy of note to me because I claim Emily as one of my favs . . . but had never considered those lines as quoted by Norris in quite that way before. The immediate thought that struck me was that I had never obviously really read Dickinson before--perhaps mearly looked at her words arranged on a page. And then, the same exact thing happened to me while reading Keller's The Reason for God. He quotes extensively from C. S. Lewis, from some Lewis titles that I thought I was familiar. But, alas, I read Keller's analysis of Lewis' thinking and thought again to myself, wow, guess I haven't really read Lewis . . . must have also just stared at the page while holding a book with his name on the cover. Sigh. Anyone else have this experience? Also, my apologies go out to Stephen King as I just realized that I broke his cardinal rule of absolutely not ever over-using adverbs.

All by myself . . .

With all thanks to my sister who did the initial design (she has decorated my home as well), I have attempted to do a little redecorating of this site. . . all by myself. This of course means absolutely nothing to those of you who have actually joined the 21st Century, but since I am what they termed "a digital immigrant" at our last school institute day (I prefer "Luddite"), the fact that there is actually some text and a few pretty colors on this site make me feel like that day back in 1980 when I rode away from my driveway on the dark blue fake-denim bananna seat bike . . . all by myself.

As much as things change . . .

I have learned that they tend to stay the same. This cliche holds true in my relationship with my sister. If you are reading this blog post, then you have likely read the first one on this site, so you are already aware, dear reader, that this blog began because my bossy older sister "made me do it." This behavior is not much different than when we were little girls with sunburnt noses and shoulders and I was the one sent inside to get cups for water, or towels for drying-off from the sprinkler. My bossy older sister of the harder-than-steel shins who won every kicking fight we ever had, and who so kindly "allowed" me to sleep on her bedroom floor when the thermometer hit 95 degrees (she had a window unit air conditioner when I did not), is also the bossy older sister who can make me laugh until I cannot breathe, and she can look at me with one eyebrow raised and that one twitch replaces a 20 minute conversation. She is the gracious older sister who was always my biggest fan even when in many situations she could have simply not acknowledged me and no one would have faulted her. Particularly when my extroverted, um, shall we say, "passionate" self could have, and I assume did, crawl under her more introverted skin. Suffice it to say, I'm writing because she has been hounding me for ten years to write something, and since she did the initial blog set-up, I was trapped, er, I mean, I agreed. So, here, I am, may my musings be worthy of her efforts.

My Sister Made Me Do It

This inaugural entry is really prologue -- a guest post by R's sister, Sherry; I'm the gal who decorated this space in an agreement that if I built it, she would write.  And so, the design, title, subtitle, pictures, descriptions, and song list at this start-up are entirely my (Sherry's) fault,  and any grammatical errors, misspellings, or less-than-sophisticated imagery should not be held against Lady R.  I'm sure she will improve upon this space when it is gifted to her and as she has time here and there after taking the reins.

Love to you, Big R!

--Sbug