Terrapin Station

Houses

Monica says at RevGals:

We are in the process of purchasing our first house, ever. In the process, we’ve realized how much we don’t know and are ever so grateful for our realtor. We’ve also reflected on what we need and/or want in our new home. Here are the Friday Five questions about your home. Play in the comments or leave a link to your blog.

This is my house, photo taken at the end of March. It looks entirely different now, with all the trees fully in leaf! Note our new, GREEN roof. 

1. What is the most important room in your home? What requirements do you have of this room? (Sure, you can answer “bathroom,” but we can stipulate that as a reasonable assumption and you can pick the second most important room). I think it's a tossup between the kitchen and the office. We spend most of our time there. As it's an older (1924) home, the kitchen is separate and not conducive to gatherings. But I do a lot of my best moving meditation there.
2. What is the least important room in your home? The one you use the least, or are not very picky about? Well, the upstairs is like no-man's-land. We moved in and our two kids each staked out a room. Our (grown) daughter didn't stay long, and that's the guest room. Brandon's room is a combination of "old stuff he left behind when he moved out 9 years ago" and "junk I piled up there rather than putting it in the attic." Mostly I never go up there any more. One of my projects for the coming months is to clean out all the Brandon and other detritus. :) 
3. Do you have preferences for your neighborhood? What are they? I love living in an old home. When I first moved to this city, I used to drive down Oak Street (the historic district) and yearn for one of those houses. Since 2001, I've lived in one! It still has much work to be done, but I adore it.
4. If your elementary aged offspring were to choose colors for their rooms, would any color be off limits? any dark color that's difficult to cover later. Brandon's room is painted dark green with white trim. It looks like a golf course. I'll be priming forever!!!
5. What is your best piece of packing or moving advice? Get someone else to help! In the words of my sister, "I can't pack my own stuff because I am always saying, "oh, look, there's my little thingy I forgot! and then it takes forever."

Awareness

Our spiritual journey requires a deepening awareness of our own shadow and light. It requires a rigorous commitment to ‘catching ourselves in the act’ of automatic, programmed responses. It requires choosing instead to respond from the place of light in us and to call forth that light in every life we touch. It requires a descent into our deepest, truest self, into the wellspring of Divine Love in us. That descent involves a thousand deaths to the ego, a constant pattern of letting go and surrendering at deeper and deeper levels. The descent often involves suffering which we do not choose—it chooses us.

Descent Into Love is available here.

K. Killian Noe
Source: Descent Into Love: How Recovery Cafe Came to Be

 

Wondering and the Internet

In the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, a Montessori-based formation program for children, a key concept is wonder: both in the sense of the wonder of God, and also wondering about God.

I am in a process of spiritual direction and one of the things that has spurred me to do is to take mindful time to wonder more.

Multiple times each day, I "need" to know something that, in the past, I would have had to expend some effort to find.

The phone number of the sewing machine repair place, for instance. Directions to a location in another city. Hey, what else has that actor been in?

I'd have had to use a phone book, a map, and a good old-fashioned trip to the library to find out those things 15 years ago...

but now, all I have to do is ask Google.

I don't even have to type any more. I just say, "Okay, Google" and then I can dictate my query.

"Okay, Google, Denton Sewing Machine Center."

"Okay, Google, what was the Protestant Reformation?"

"Okay, Google, recipe for stuffed artichokes."

"Okay, Google, why is a can opener called a "church key"?

Google is really good at information. But I think that I have become so accustomed to instant gratification from that source that I tend to dismiss, forget to wonder about, things that I am not able to answer that way.

"Okay, Google, what's the right life path for me to take?"

"Okay, Google, will my broken relationship be repaired? How? What should I do next?"

"Okay, Google, how can I feel more comfortable in my own skin?"

"Okay, Google, how much time do I have left?"

Things just happen too darn fast any more.

I was approached recently about a Snapchat account for my office, to reflect the student programming we do. The person approaching was a student, natch. I don't use the platform, I know it exists and has a logo that looks like a little ghost. That's it. So I Googled it (of course) and watched a video about how (mostly) kids use it and what kinds of things they use it for. And it made me want to hide under my bed.

Apparently the attraction of Snapchat is that you have to be watching all the time or you will miss the post, because posts don't stay (as on Facebook) but go away. So the people who use it are on it constantly.

and that's where I draw the line (for me personally)

because I'm already on Facebook and email a really lot. But I can't stand the idea of being on anything constantly.

My soul is telling me I need to go the other way, and in a hurry.

My soul needs more time for wonder. Both kinds.