The world works in mysterious ways.
It's funny to me when people discuss the dark nights of winter. In Minnesota, generally, we have enough snow cover, and a good chance of minute ice crystals in the air, that any light we do have gets bounced around like crazy.
Light "pollution" from above And below.
I meant to have the office done by tomorrow. I dug into it pretty well initially, and then a good-sized chunk of life dug into my week. And I re-remembered some useful lessons in humility that set my perspective back to "real time".
About as real as it can get.
By "humility" I mean a real sense of scale, where self importance is concerned. And vanity, and time, more than anything else.
A movie I am getting (ahem. Somewhat) obsessed with is "Into Great Silence". It's a documentary on the monks of the Grand Chartruese (Carthusians, to put it another way.) Director Philip Groning shot there for 6 months -after waiting 16 years for permission to do so. Fitting, as his initial idea was to make a documentary about time, and it's passage. Ironically for me, minutes lately take on a persistent and speaking importance, whereas a trait Groning had picked up on was the fearlessness of the monks - the sense that whatever the morning brought was to be embraced or, perhaps, accepted calmly as part of Gods way, maybe. I could be paraphrasing badly, here.
Sometimes, the sense of knowing we are small is a relief, other times a pressure-point. Right now, strive for fearlessness though I might, I am feeling the pressure of the worth of my minutes. Well spent, and poorly, alike.
Were I to total them up, I am afraid I would find too many spent on myself, compared with what I have devoted to others. Not a bad way to motivate my tomorrow, but utterly useless to redeem the past. Still, nice to know that such personal mortification may have a useful role. I do not think I am going all drama-queen here either, by the way. We all know what our self-indulgences are, and mine is so very precious.
Perfect, isolate, moments of hoarded time.
Maybe one role for humility comes at a small price of shame.
I'm not awake enough to pursue this twisty thought train much further. I'll put my awareness of weakness to work, to feel comfortable with how my time is spent. It comes from a bank with no insurance, after all.
And there's no way possible to pay it back.
So here I go, off again, to strive once more to use time wisely. If time comes at a cost, and humility is the debt, at least the striving can make headway in the ledger :-)
Good night, sparkly, snowy world.
Give yourself a glittering tomorrow, filled with cherished time.
S.
It's funny to me when people discuss the dark nights of winter. In Minnesota, generally, we have enough snow cover, and a good chance of minute ice crystals in the air, that any light we do have gets bounced around like crazy.
Light "pollution" from above And below.
I meant to have the office done by tomorrow. I dug into it pretty well initially, and then a good-sized chunk of life dug into my week. And I re-remembered some useful lessons in humility that set my perspective back to "real time".
About as real as it can get.
By "humility" I mean a real sense of scale, where self importance is concerned. And vanity, and time, more than anything else.
A movie I am getting (ahem. Somewhat) obsessed with is "Into Great Silence". It's a documentary on the monks of the Grand Chartruese (Carthusians, to put it another way.) Director Philip Groning shot there for 6 months -after waiting 16 years for permission to do so. Fitting, as his initial idea was to make a documentary about time, and it's passage. Ironically for me, minutes lately take on a persistent and speaking importance, whereas a trait Groning had picked up on was the fearlessness of the monks - the sense that whatever the morning brought was to be embraced or, perhaps, accepted calmly as part of Gods way, maybe. I could be paraphrasing badly, here.
Sometimes, the sense of knowing we are small is a relief, other times a pressure-point. Right now, strive for fearlessness though I might, I am feeling the pressure of the worth of my minutes. Well spent, and poorly, alike.
Were I to total them up, I am afraid I would find too many spent on myself, compared with what I have devoted to others. Not a bad way to motivate my tomorrow, but utterly useless to redeem the past. Still, nice to know that such personal mortification may have a useful role. I do not think I am going all drama-queen here either, by the way. We all know what our self-indulgences are, and mine is so very precious.
Perfect, isolate, moments of hoarded time.
Maybe one role for humility comes at a small price of shame.
I'm not awake enough to pursue this twisty thought train much further. I'll put my awareness of weakness to work, to feel comfortable with how my time is spent. It comes from a bank with no insurance, after all.
And there's no way possible to pay it back.
So here I go, off again, to strive once more to use time wisely. If time comes at a cost, and humility is the debt, at least the striving can make headway in the ledger :-)
Good night, sparkly, snowy world.
Give yourself a glittering tomorrow, filled with cherished time.
S.
