Monday - June 16, 2008

On the lowcarb front:
Now that school is out, I am hoping to really have time to focus on what I need to do. I got a 20 minute workout in this morning which is a good start. Summer is generally a little easier because I have more time to do the things I love. I am hoping for great things in the next couple of months, one of them being firmly planted in the lowcarb lifestyle before going back for my last 4 months of work at the school.

Yesterday we celebrated Father's Day by going down to Nina and Jamie's house for a cookout. Nina was worried that a storm would ruin the day. We did get a bit of a thunder dunder so we went inside and had a great time playing Guitar Hero and WII baseball. After the storm we went out for a bean bag toss game while Clayton searched for "bugs and creatures." I did pretty well food-wise. It wasn't hard because Nina and Jamie had burgers, steaks, and hot dogs. Later we walked up town for ice cream. (Always ice cream on Sunday in the summer.) I opted for sugar free frozen yogurt which may or may not have been sugar free, but really tasted good. I probably won't do that again because I have a hard time trusting people who don't get the difference between sugar free and fat free. There are actually people who think the terms are interchangeable.

But yesterday was a lot of fun as are family times together.

On the home front:
For some reason I was up exceedingly early today. It's the first day of summer vacation for me - maybe that's it. I had a funeral to do this morning. And I'm headed out to Sam's club to stock up on some stuff. A trip to Mt. Pleasant is never complete without a visit to JoAnn's and a drop-off to GoodWill.

I have a ton of work to do this week. Even though school is out, I have inventory to finish up in the media center.

The house is a wreck and I am hosting a Home & Garden party for Melisa. Time for crisis cleaning (which basically means stash and dash and lock the rooms until I can get time to deep clean.)

Word of the day:
Matthew 5:38-42
Jesus said to the crowds, "You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you."

To paraphrase an old quote attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt - "no one can make you a victim without your permission."

On the face of it, this passage is talking about peace and forgiveness, but when I read it, I see it as something else. Have you ever had someone say to you when asking to borrow a pencil, "can I steal a pencil?" Now, of course this person is not really asking permission to steal. That would be a sort of oxymoron. What he or she is asking is, "may I borrow a pencil. I am of the opinion that words mean things and I often wonder if we are not losing the language. If one is stealing from you, does that not make you a victim of theft? However, if you give someone an item that is a totally different situation. How much more power does a person have who gives something rather than one from whom something is taken.

When I talk about power, I am referring, of course, to spiritual power. There is an old story in a book by Anthony De Mello. I am hazy on the details but it goes something like this. There is a man who has a precious stone. Another man covets that stone and begs the first man to give it to him. When the man hands it over, the second man enjoys the stone for a while but later returns it to the first man saying "I want what you have that allowed you to give me the stone."

I am re-telling the story very badly, but the gist of it is that the second man is asking for the freedom to give generously. He recognizes that there is power in not being held hostage to the possessions of this world.

The truth is, we really own nothing in this world. We are merely stewards. The man with many possessions is no richer than the man who has none. In fact, the man with many possessions can be very much poorer if he is held hostage to those possessions and if they distract him from his true place in the world. That is not to say that having possessions is bad. But we are called to be "poor in spirit." Being poor in spirit means that we recognize that when we stand before God, we, in truth, have nothing but the grace of God. A favorite priest of mine once said in a homily, "you take nothing with you when you leave this world except the love you shared along the way."

Words to live by, those are.
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I'm off to work out - will update later . . .