Belonged To A Raging Alcoholic

With it being another Sunday morning, I high-tailed it to office to get started on my contemplative prayer session, and for the best of reasons, it was far more fulfilling than normal, and so much so, I was trying to make it last all the longer, but as I well know, there is a given block of time allowed, and once I get too far over it, my concentration starts dropping like a rock. When thinking about it now, nearly all the monastics have a number of relatively short periods of prayer thru-out the day. Some of the more rigid ones get up very early to begin their daily sessions. For me, that would be like getting up in the middle of the night.

After I finished, I placed a call to one of my colleagues, just to see how all has been, and after hearing about some bland happenings, I proceeded to share a few things I was made privy to this past week, which I ended up expounding on. The real thrust of it all, is the fact that there are those in our society who haven't freely and willingly given of themselves their entire lives in such fashions where theirs actions are remembered and survive their graves. Personally, I'd be getting really sick of myself if I wasn't doing at least something with zero strings attached that would bring joy and satisfaction to others. We are all given gifts of time and talent, but rarely put them to use because they're closely held under their selfish baskets. I definitely gave my colleague a little rattling this morning, but that's what some are in need of at times.

Over these past three or four days, I've been getting this 'feeling' that good things are starting to turn in my direction. Without going into detail, there've been at least five totally unexpected positive things that've taken place these recent days to where I'm now starting to look for them even more.

Several surprises happened today, and one of them was my being able to play and sing over at St. Paul, far more calmly and collectedly, and to the point where I wasn't even perspiring which was definitely a first. All the hymns and singing went well except the entrance which was very fast-paced, so in spite of my being able to sight read, it was so fast I couldn't keep up with my reading, which caused me to miss a few notes, and yet I wasn't at all upset over it, and only because I simply told myself that I must now build up my ability to sight read more quickly.

Another strange happening which must've been a Divine intervention, was my having grabbed a religious hymn I'd been practicing on and off at the office, but not even close to being to the point of playing it for the public. I actually didn't realize I'd picked the wrong one out of my pile until I started playing. Oh my goodness! Well, I managed to get thru all eight pages without having to stop, so I guess my fears over that one for the general public were completely dispelled. I still can't believe I picked that one out of my stack when knowing fully-well I wasn't prepared for it. I think the Higher Power must've been telling me to stop fretting and get on with life's show.

I forgot to mention what happened to me yesterday which was totally my fault, and that was my having taken my screened hat off along with my prescription sun glasses while I was visiting with someone for about ten minutes. Well, about five minutes out, one of those nasty gnats flew directly into my right eye, and as much as I tried to get it out, it must've got pushed down into my tear duct. I could feel it for about an hour our so, and then it must've died and broken up, but about two hours before I hit the hay, I could feel a slight swelling under my eye, so I looked in the mirror, and there I could see a pinkish raising under my eye which I didn't think much about.

Reeling forward to this morning, when I looked in the mirror as I was preparing to shave, that slight swelling had turned into a definite reddish bag, which had me looking like my right eye belonged to a raging alcoholic. Well, all I could do was clean myself up and stay hopeful the swelling would go down. Thank goodness I didn't have any meetings with people, and the few I came face to face with, I was fast-explaining what happened yesterday. Fortunately my glasses blocked anyone from seeing the worst of it. Thank goodness the swelling is now down considerably, so hopefully I won't have a one-eyed bag staring me in the face tomorrow morning. All I can think of, is perhaps there was some sort of enzyme or poison in that gnat which affected my tear duct. You can rest assured I'll not be taking my glasses off while those gnats are buzzing about.

Upon return from St. Paul, I grabbed a bite to eat and then got caught up on all the news feeds. There really wasn't anything earth-shattering, so I went and changed into my work clothes and headed over to my project to get another four hours of work done.

For whatever reason, I decided it was time to get started at another 'to do' on my list which encompassed getting a large number of layers of paint scraped off a door casing. Oh my goodness! I'd done the very same thing to another door frame about five years ago, but had forgotten how physically challenging it was. All I can say, is I did get the worst parts of it done, so the rest of it won't be so physically taxing. Believe it or not, I was completely wet from stem to stern to the point where I even had to change my underclothes. Oh well, I definitely got a workout today, and hopefully I won't be feeling it come tomorrow morning.

As warm as it was out today, I still can't get my brain wrapped around what it'll be like come Tuesday and Wednesday when our temps are supposed to be in the lower 100's. I can only remember one time in my life when a summer temp was over the 100 mark, and that was decades ago, and happened only one day. If I remember right, it was just one degree above, so you can be sure there'll be record-setting temps those two days.

Tonight's One-liner is: Compliments cost nothing, yet many pay dearly for them.

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