Felz Naptha and the Holy Spirit...

I finished my last workshop today making it feels like a Friday. Students from West Orange High School's 'green team' joined me at Humphreys Junior High, a home school group that meets at our church. The green team group let me in on a recipe to make your own laundry soap. Apparently you boil grated Fels Naptha, add washing soda and borax, and you are good to go. And it smells good and works with a high efficiency machine. I am picturing myself as Granny on The Beverly Hillbillies, out in the back yard with my kettle of boiling suds.

Recently, I pictured myself as the guy on the hot sauce container, gaping mouth, protruding tongue, stars circling his head. Or the old man in the grocery store chase scene in Raising Arizona, face full in the camera, eyes protruding, hollering so wide you can see his tonsils. I am given to blood curdling screams in my sleep and have to warn people when I am a house guest or sharing a room. The night before last I had one of my worst bouts ever with on-going screaming and subsequent sobbing.  Needless to say I end up feeling a little 'off' the next day, groggy and headachy, and reaching for the caffeine.

I try to start my mornings with a prayer/ journaling ritual that begins with avoiding the praying and journaling part. I remember being at a writer's conference when someone said the first rule of writing is "apply ass to chair." That's an irreverent quote since I am talking about prayer, but it seems to apply. I finally settled in this morning with my favorite pen and spiral bound notebook. I was trying to commit my day to God, but the words 'commit' and 'God' made me grit my teeth. I don't like that word 'commit', and authority figures along the way have caused me to trip on the word God too. So, I thought about  "God is love" and Jesus saying he is truth. I began to think in terms of turning my day over to love, to peace, to patience, to kindness, to thankfulness, and to moderation (because I don't like the words 'self-control' either.)

With regard to control and the losing of it, to letting go, I'll close with a video of one of my favorite things to watch. Through our sliding glass door I can see white gauze curtains blowing in the wind. They hang from a cable strung between posts in our pool enclosure. The breeze moves them in beautiful folds of white on white, dancing furls, holding on and being held. I want to be like that. Dancing like fingers on a keyboard, shaped and reshaped, and gently folded into white upon white, moved by Beauty that is as unpredictable as it is constant.