Someone recently remarked that they had my blog figured out. She boldly stated, “You blog when you are happy.” I laughed and wondered how I had left such an impression on one who sits with me in real life and witnesses the beauty, joy, and true happiness I enjoy every day. As we sipped tea, listened to the girls share their gifts of music, and laughed recounting life’s goodness I tried to explain that I do not go away from the blog to sulk, but rather to think, live, be, and learn. Sometimes I feel called to share the pages of this life’s journal; sometimes it is enough to simply write in my journal or think or just sit. Sometimes I am called to be quiet. Quiet is good.
Sometimes I find my joy
In laughing out loud
Sometimes in quiet.
Still . . .
I count it all joy.
The following pages of my journal filled from my overflowing pen this morn. Maybe this will help my friend see that a quiet blog does not mean a disquieted heart.
* * *
3-24-2011
These morning hours of quiet, prayer, study, and writing enrich my life like a frame setting off the canvas upon which God/Christ/Spirit paint me . . . my life . . . my message to the world.
“Essential,” I write, knowing that a day (such as yesterday) without this quiet beginning lacks something vital, like bread baked without salt (an oversight I commit when baking under hurried or distracted circumstances). A day without quiet contemplation resembles a salt-less loaf over-risen becoming full of air, splitting at the edges, losing beauty, tasteless, blowsy and frail . . . in short, unsatisfactory to serve. It falls to bits when the knife comes, rendering it useless save for breadcrumbs; even then it must be dried out to be of any use. How sad to see a loaf set aside while still fresh and warm and eager to be enjoyed. Patiently the crumb dries and waits to be ground into meal that will shore up a heartier fare such as ground beef destined to become a succulent loaf – the centerpiece of supper. The breadcrumb sees her vital role even if she has been hidden away into a new kind of loaf. Others may not see her, but she is present and presently used.
Proverbial, prophetic, poetic.
Scripture (Matt. 5:13) calls for salt to season life, to add flavor, to preserve with integrity. So what of the unseasoned? Unsavory? God finds use for the salt-less loaves, does He not? Surely He has taught the housewife all she knows, had He not? Ground to meal, salted and seasoned, ready for use in a new way she gives to life.
Some disparage my choice to forgo accolades from lectures given in Ivy-ed Halls in favor of hearth-side service. Where once I dreamed of audiences vast for my excavated treasures, I changed course and followed God’s call like a desert Amma. In quiet surrounds I pray, read, write, learn, teach, nurture, give, live, love.
My life exceeds my dreams.
My loaf of life is seasoned, leavened, baked, and served
by His recipe.
And it is good . . .
albeit quiet at times,
like when I am chewing a big mouthful of Daily Bread.
