Tugging the Strings

The Lemurian Abbey project at Soul Food Cafe has become an amazing experience for me. I'm always fascinated with how life tugs on all the strings at once when it decides it's "time" to learn or do a particular thing. So, here comes Lent and Heather announces she's going to build a monastery, I'm reading a Maxxie Dunnam book with a cloister on the cover, had already decided to do a series of meditations and there's an altered book on the prayer of St. Francis niggling at the back of my brain.

My creative plans usually take on their own erratic twists and turns and my meditations this year are no exception. I had expected them to be rather straight forward, but they've evolved into a fictional account of daily life in Lemurian Abbey. I've placed myself there along with my cat and parrot. The first thing I was told by the abbess was, "You have everything you need."

I've started writing every day and have begun the often put-off altered book. I've learned there are always too many choices and the trick is to choose and get on with it, I've discovered that lack of focus, and impatience can bring me down, but admitting my own faults can put me back on target.

This morning I woke up wondering if my cell at the abbey is the dry run for the move I must make one day. If so, I'll remember that all I took with me were my faith, my pets, and some art and writing supplies. And I'll remember the tiny window high up in the wall that supplied all the light I needed and grew bigger every day.

Learning from Mistakes

I've been writing a lot for The Abbey in Soul Food Cafe. While checking the new posts today, I spotted three typos in the last paragraph of my carefully spell-checked story. When I went back to edit I discovered that every Oreo (my cat's name) and every Tookey (my parrot's name) had been changed to ore and took. I must have clicked something thinking it would keep all the Oreos and Tookeys, when in truth it replaced them all. As Edison once said, "I now know 100 or so ways not to make a lightbulb." Live and learn.

Learning from Others

O Lord, teach me to live my life without the "buts." Teach me to not qualify my joys with constant disclaimers, but to accept and relish each one in its entirety.