My five are:
- I play ball with my dog. The rhythm of playing catch, her insatiable love of fetch, and being outdoors causes the rest of the world to recede for thirty minutes.
- I sink into a good book. I have been on a tear of reading Laurie King’s series about Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes. I love mysteries that don’t involve gore, and the stories, especially those set in London and San Francisco where I’ve traveled, capture my imagination and transport me, even though they are set some ninety years ago in the years following The Great War.
- I find a distraction. I am a champion worrier and schemer, who can play, “What if…” with the best fortune tellers. When I fall into that practice, I root myself in today and find someone to visit or talk with, a project to work on, or a place to go. There isn’t a day that goes by when I couldn’t be less self-centered so I intentionally try to focus on other people.
- I cook or bake. The results aren’t always edible, but that’s ok. Apart from the everyday drudge of having dinner on the table, I enjoy being in the kitchen and I love most food. Recent discoveries include meatball pie, frittatas, roasted vegetables, zoodles (zucchini noodles) and homemade crusty bread. Tying two loves together, I recently finished reading Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and while I’m not ready to embark on a year of eating local, it challenged me to consider more carefully where food comes from and what I eat.
- I pray and I cry. Sometimes, life sucks. Sometimes, it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes, it seems like people are asked to endure too much. Sometimes, I want to turn my back on the messiness but other times, I stay where I can hear or see it and weep and pray. God is present in our suffering and hears our cries. Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals now has an app for iPad and iPhone that includes clips of songs and links to Scripture. Twitter folks including Weavings and Rev. Naomi King, publish prayers. One of the beautiful things about the family of God, despite the things that make being a family hard, is that we are not standing alone against the darkness and brokenness of the world.
