the problem with publicly committing to writing a blog every dang month of your 50th bday year....is that then you have to....do it. (nothing would happen if I didn't of course!) the thing is: that's easier said than done.
I know "a little" a very little mostly it seems...about a lot of stuff. caregiving and loving and observing and assessing and faith and illness and emotions and supporting and grief and facilitating and suffering and joy and performing and music and justice and disability and thinking thinking thinking (and more thinking:)
but I also know how flawed I am in the pursuits of all the things I care about... I don't much care to put my thoughts out there like I'm clear on it all. I mean I might do it:) But along with a fair amount of confidence in my own competence......is a high amount of self doubt and self awareness of my flaws. more so the older I get. maybe that's a good thing.
I've been sick three significant times this month. it's weird for me to slow down. I know it's my body talking to me. I understand the impact of prolonged stress and I'm trying to take care...
It's had me thinking about my own finitude. rather than writing a bunch about that I'll lean into these words from Kate Bowler for Lent....
speaks my heart....
"A blessing for Ash Wednesday"
God, today our finitude is rubbed on our foreheads.
The reality of our limits, our fragile bodies,
from dust we are made
to dust we will return.
Some days we need to be reminded
that we are not the perfectibility projects
we set out to be.
We are full of bounce and brimming with hope.
All woes, solvable. All problems, a distant whisper.
When we don’t feel like dust,
Bless us, oh God,
in the ways we trick ourselves into believing,
that our lives are something we’ve made,
that all our accomplishments and successes and mastered mornings
add up to something independent of you.
But on days like today, when our heads hang low
Sunk with the grief of our neediness,
Bless us, oh God.
When our joints don’t work like they should,
when we grow sick or turn gray too soon.
when our bodies betray us…
or perhaps they are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
Tell us again
exactly how you made us:
from dust to dust.
Blessed are we, a mess of contradictions,
in our delusions and deep hopes,
in our fragility and finitude.
