Poor Pour Pore

Ok, it's not that bad, but it feels like it is.  Middle-age acne has been worse than anything I had in adolescence.  Sometimes it feels like I'm oozing puss from every pore.  I keep trying different solutions and they work for a while and then there's some kind of allergic reaction and it's worse.  Evidently this is my body's last flourish and hope for reproducing, but I'll only have ink and paper babies from now on. 
I've considered makeup, but I feel like David in Saul's armor.  I gave up cosmetics after a summer in stage makeup, and I still prefer to meet people as I am.  There are times and places for such things, but not everyday.  So, everyday I wince, smear on the latest remedy, and go out. 
I've taken my appearance for granted.  I've been comfortable in my own skin, but previous to now, my skin was comfortable.  It's reminded me of others who have no choice about an upsetting appearance, they either live with our stares or stay home and skip living.  Hopefully this opportunity will make me more open to the brave souls around me.

Czech, Czech, Czech

Pursuing God

The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought. 

Vaclav Havel 

Focused on Family

Just as the constant increase of entropy is the basic law of the universe, so it is the basic law of life to be ever more highly structured and to struggle against entropy. 

Vaclav Havel

Learning to Forgive, Even Myself

Modern man must descend the spiral of his own absurdity to the lowest point; only then can he look beyond it. It is obviously impossible to get around it, jump over it, or simply avoid it. 

Vaclav Havel

Generally Healthy

I think it's important for one to take a certain distance from oneself. 

Vaclav Havel  

Remembering Optimism

Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good. 

Vaclav Havel

Using My Gifts

If we are to change our world view, images have to change. The artist now has a very important job to do. He's not a little peripheral figure entertaining rich people, he's really needed. 

Vaclav Havel 

thank you, Brainy Quote.com

My Favorite Alien

His excellent sense of fashion and his amazing blue eyes aside, Griffin the Arcanian from MIB III is the best alien character ever invented. His ability to see many possible futures at once makes him fascinating, and his realistic compassion touches the heart.  I wish I had his gift.
When we have a family crisis around here--of the imminent spilled milk, personal injury, or destroyed property kind, my husband leaps into action.  I freeze.  I want to know that I truly understand the situation before I try something that might make it worse.  Generally his swift catch saves the day, but he's learned to respect my perspective.  Between the two of us we do the best that can be done most of the time.
Taking the long view means I have lots of time to second-guess my decisions, to reconsider even if they can't be changed.  My fascination with the optimal means I reexamine failures or less than optimal outcomes frequently to determine if there is a principle to be learned or a technique to be refined.  The upside is that when I do choose a plan it is unlikely to fail.  The downside is that I seldom think my plans are good enough to act on.
My forties seem like a good time to shake that up, to do a few things I'm not sure of.  I'm ready to make mistakes.  Mistakes are many things, but they are seldom the end of the world--unless K forgets to leave a tip.

Boomerang-Toomerang-Zoomerang!

I called my nook, X the Owl, and my iPad, Henrietta Pussycat because of their functions and their sharing of purse space.  Sharing Henrietta Pussycat with my children didn't work out, so when it was time to name another iPad, it had to be Lady Elaine Fairchilde.  She has always been my favorite character on the show, and iPad's are as magical as her boomerang and as crammed with treasure as the Museum-Go-Round.
Fred Rogers was one the most powerful forces in my childhood.  He gave me another measure for love that I wasn't getting anywhere else.  It wasn't that the other measures were false, but that the more ways you have to think about something as important as love, the more likely you are to truly understand it.  In the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, there wasn't one kind of love for the those who were behaving well and another kind for those who were behaving badly.  Good was still good and bad was still bad, but love is still love after all.  Disapproval was never allowed to suborn disrespect.  There was also a healthy understanding that dissent didn't mean disloyalty.  Sometimes things need to be shaken up.

My Personal Fab Five

Everybody needs good advice from their friends.  These literary figures have long been my good friends, so much so that I call them Aunt or Uncle depending.  These are not my favorite saints.  That's a whole different thing.  This is more about camaraderie than hero worship, though I'll admit to a little hero worship.

Tante Corrie (Ten Boom)
The consequences for her sympathy for others are horrific, but no matter how much else she lost, she never lost this basic instinct of caring for others in trouble.  I want to be as brave and forgiving as she was.

 Auntie Jane (Austen)
She pushed herself to write for publication, but never lost her own voice.  I want to be published.

Aunt Flan(nery O'Connor)
She woke me up and made writing seem like something worth doing.  I never understood what redemption meant until The Violent Bear It Away.  Now I can't stop looking at it--through parted fingers, but still.

Uncle Jack (C. S. Lewis)
His tape started running in my head when Dad started reading me The Chronicles of Narnia at two and finally left off reading me Lewis with That Hideous Strength when I was off to get married at twenty-three.  I marvel at how he shapes my mind, down to a fascination with medieval literature.  I hope to learn his kindness.

Uncle Frebby (Frederick Buechner)
He is my only living model, which was quite a comfort when I was lonely.  He is so patient with his faults and honest about discussing them.  I grew up in a world where flaws were hidden or everyone was too intimidated to state the obvious.  I want to be that genuine. 

Until Epiphany

I hate hard deadlines.  I feel so flustered, and there is nothing in the year of family life with a harder deadline than Christmas.  You have to gather it all up, decorate it all up, and party it up before the 25 gets here.  When it's past midnight and I'm still wrapping, it feels as though only death has a firmer though unknown end point. I was chatting with a friend about Christmas work, when it occurred to me that I'm a Catholic now--a Catholic Christmas starts Christmas Eve and keeps right on going into early January.  My timeline suddenly felt generous.  I find that deadline extension comforting, even though I'll still need to get the presents wrapped and the fancy clothes organized by the day, I will have a luxurious amount of time to reflect on the meaning of the season and Christ's place in my life.
Sometimes preparing for death seems as crammed and crowded as Christmas.  We have so much to do, to be, to share, and things get behind.   My first priest said that Purgatory is an acknowledgement that we die with sin and that that must be cleaned away.  How comforting!  I'd hate to show up in the Lord's presence still dragging this crap along.  A chance to "shower and change into his righteousness" is just the thing.  Purgatory is a deadline extension. a chance to reflect on the meaning of life and Christ's place in it.

Catching Up

My childhood was rather extraordinarily sheltered.  Adulthood opened a few doors, but mostly my life was all about following the pattern laid out from birth to death.  The only possible adventure would be the return of Christ, and while other people hailed it with joy, I figured they hadn't really thought through all that Tribulation stuff.
The voice of the Holy Spirit whispers gently to the root-bound, and I had numerous moments when I thought I heard something and found myself in trouble with the adults in my life.  They were sure they knew what the Holy Spirit might or might not say.  What I thought I'd heard wasn't likely or even possible.  So they said.
For me one of the global differences between Protestant as I experienced it and Catholic is that Catholics expect to be surprised.  They are open to Mary dropping off a message or some other improbable happening, and I love that.  While they have every confidence in the Word of God, they don't shrink God's work down to a contract.  Instead of closing their eyes and resting in God's peace they keep their eye's sharp looking for the work of God and for their place in it. 
Becoming a Catholic was for me, a Holy Spirit as Gandalf moment.  I was sitting there in my garden smoking a pipe, when he scratched a secret message on my heart, "Do or die time," so I did.  For me, becoming a Catholic was like Bilbo running straight out the green door.  I am having an adventure.