I Need Another Day

Week-ends are too short.  We have had two glorious days in which autumn is just barely hanging on, and we need a few more.

I was up reading Thomas Merton from 4:00 to 5:00 this morning.  I have given up trying to fall back to sleep when I wake up at 3:00 or 4:00; I just get up and check email and read until I get drowsy again.  I have to get through The Seven Storey Mountain by tomorrow night for my Spiritual Autobiography class, and I guess 4:00 a.m. is as good as any other time.

I had a long telephone conversation with my father and stepmother; they're always up at some ungodly hour.   Her bone scan was yesterday and her brain scan is tomorrow.  My father's out-of-town brother had come for a visit and his in-town brother had suggested that all three couples have dinner together last night.  My father hadn't wanted to go, but his wife pointed out that they hadn't been anywhere except to doctors and hospitals for weeks.  She said they had a wonderful evening.  My father needs her to make those things happen.

Later in the morning, I went to the adult education portion of church, since I had helped plan it and had to introduce the speaker.  We've had a two-week series on money, with three speakers sharing their own life dilemmas.  They've all been interesting, but not as radically challenging as I had hoped.  I had to read Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness a couple of weeks ago, also for my class, and while I don't feel any personal affection for Dorothy Day, the woman is a definite challenge to middle-class complacency. 

Everyone I talked with at church is reeling in dismay at the election results.

This afternoon I did laundry, graded papers (a  task I truly hate), planned some classes for the upcoming week, and vacuumed everything in sight in the living room.  Some guys are coming to clean the upholstered furniture tomorrow and I don't want them to faint dead away.  Why is it again that we have these animals?

It was a perfect day for long walks.  I just kept going and going. 

This evening I went back to church for my (very small) Lectio Divina Group.  We read a passage from next week's lectionary and pray together.  More election unhappiness.

Who did I run into today?  A friend coming out her front door as I was walking by, on her way to a state meeting for local school board members.  Another friend dropped by to drop off the purse my daughter had left at her house Halloween night.  My next door neighbor was taking out the garbage as I came in later tonight and told me they've bought a new house and are moving next spring or summer. 

My daughter and I watched a very sad American Dreams tonight.  My sons and all their friends are twenty years old.  My students and former students range from thirteen to twenty.  At least one of them is already in the Israeli army.  What in the world does the future hold for our beloved young people?

Walked 4 miles.  Week total: 21!