Water of life
I’m back at the Ranch, most likely until next Friday. It is so beautiful here.
I’ve been reminded (thank you) that this is my grounding place. I have a week now, to work, read, write, and breathe. The only thing really pressing on me is filling out CPE applications. I haven’t even looked at the website yet, but… reflective writing? That I can do.
Hosting is easy, with most groups; it mostly boils down to being friendly and available, and knowing where things are. I did it all summer, and I loved it. I didn’t have to worry about lightswitches or fireplaces, but it’s October, and the misty darkness sighs coziness to me. I love it.
Work, study, breathing, prayer… they can and do blend, here. I feel like I’m making incremental progress on the personal stuff—but that is, still, progress. The best thing for me now is to pray and breathe, and stop driving myself to figure everything out, for awhile.
I bailed from Berkeley immediately after my Liturgics midterm. (It’s not brilliant, but I do think he’ll pass me.) It was misting when I got here, which turned to rain soon after. I got myself settled, put on raincoat and duck shoes, and went for a walk. I discovered just how ineffective my raincoat is; it was given to me sometime around 1999, and I rather need a new one. This October day felt like June in Olympia, only gentler: it was wet, but warm, and utterly enticing to walk in. I wandered down to the creekbed, and back around again to the peace pole, soaked, beaming. The leaves are changing, and the trails are green from the rain. It smelled wonderful.
Then I changed into drier clothes, and met with Sean to talk about tomorrow, when he’ll be at DioCon. There are new hosting procedures, and fall details I’d never had to think about. We went over those, and walked around outside, giving me a tour of—yes—lightswitches and fireplaces. I met some of the people who are staying here right now. Nice groups.
Turned on the outside light in the chapel, and came back to my room. I have a hot bath waiting for me. :-)
1 comment:
Don't minimize the tour of those all-important light switches! Some years back, I was part of a business group that got a great discount on hotel rooms for a meeting by arranging to be the first guests when the hotel reopened for the season. (It was an area where--trust me--no one would want to visit in mid-summer.) In fact, we actually arrived the night before the hotel officially opened, and one of our group was given the keys and the code to the alarm, since none of the staff were yet present. There was, however, just one problem--no one had given us a clue where to turn on the lights for all the public areas of the hotel! So there we were, sitting on the veranda out front, waving our lone flashlight to welcome the other members of the group...then weaving our way, like a group of spelunkers led by a single lamp, through the dark tunnels of the building to peer blindly at the doorposts and try to identify our rooms.
So alleluia for light switches, and the wisdom to know where to find them!
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