7 Longish Takes: I’m So Very “Thankful”

One

A dusting of snow. It is very pretty. I will grant you that. Very picturesque. Didn't feel that way last night as I tried to drag the dog out for his evening walk. He trudged along well behind me and then finally just started going home, pulling whimpishly on his leash and glaring at me with his teeth. Who am I to insist? Now he is pressing himself against me under the blanket. I'm sure I'm going to have to get him some kind of little winter coat. Cough. For him, you know, not for any other reason.

Anyway, the children are frothing with excitement and wonder, as if something good has just happened to them. Well, the two little girls are. The other girls are still dead asleep. Its so wonderful that these older children can sleep and sleep. I had heard of this with the hearing of the ear, but as yet my eye had not beheld this wonder. When they wake up I suppose they'll have to layer up and go touch it. And then they'll want hot chocolate. And they'll be crying because their hands are cold. And there will be wet snow all over the floor. What a beautiful time it is, winter.

Two

Trying to be more thankful and positive about everything. Can you tell? Noticed this week that for every good thing someone said, including the children, I was quick with a bad thing in response. Oh, you grew up in Binghamton and you sort of like it and it could be worse? Well, you won't feel that way in January when it turns out to be the coldest winter ever! That kind of thing. Going to try and stop, because I'm not carrying around enough general guilt and need more.

What I mean to say is, it's so important to be thankful and rejoice in all things, and I'm not very good at that, so I'm going to work in it in the next few days. Perhaps longer if I can't completely alter my personality by Monday, which is my personal deadline.

Three

Thing is, I am very grateful for so many things. Chief among them, and something about which I whine a great deal, is that we live right smack next door to our place of employ, and because that is so, I don't ever have to go outside. So while it might not be particularly kind of God to place me in a very cold place, and I often feel that he is trying to hurt me by making me live here, he has provided a way for me to rarely feel the icy fingers of winter, crawling down my neck and freezing the delicate skin of my lips. Even the presence of the dog, who occassionaly requires a walk, doesn't really wreck it because he's a small lazy dog and hates the cold as well. It's not like I have to take him out running every morning for an hour or he will die, as it is with big dogs, or so I hear. My walk to church takes four and a half seconds. So, I have every cause to be really grateful.

That's the thing about gratitude, I think. It's the point where theology and reality meet. What do you really believe about God? Or rather, what do I believe about God? Would rather, of course, talk about you and your bad theology, but I guess I should stick to mine. Judge yourself, and all that spiritual stuff. Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, what do I believe about God? I know from scripture that I am a desperate sinner deserving only wrath and cold and trials and unhappiness (that's my kinder way of saying hell). And I know with my mind, on some dim level, that scripture is true. I agree with it, at least intellectually. But my flesh carries on as if I am not a desperate sinner but rather someone around whom the universe turns and depends, someone who is owed a really good deal. Gratitude, I think, is the clashing point between what I know to be true and what I feel ought to be, between the flesh and the spirit. The flesh says, Are You Kidding?! The spirit say, thank goodness I'm not dead, how nice God is for not killing me outright the way he should, and for making a way for me to avoid the snow.

Four

Got in the last of the late summer, late autumn flowers this week. Pale pink and golden orange and dusky blue. Carried them around with me from room to room, praying for them to last a few moments longer.

Five

Also, I need to note that we had a pretty good week of school. I've been trying to keep up with Learning Notes thought the week, and will hopefully have them up tomorrow. Overall, it was surprisingly good, even with lots of extra busyness. We fell into the way of doing “research” and then “writing reports”, we finished the latest math book, had a history test and wrapped up a lot of loose ends. Wish this had been the actual end of the quarter. Bad planning on my part. But we are coming up on a two week break for Thanksgiving and it's sort of wondrous to me that we should have finished things before a break, so that when we pick up again we will be beginning new things, rather than just picking up where we left off. “Things” is a technical homeschool word to refer to “Stuff”. It helps the homeschooler avoid the profane but more common way of talking about it which is not really suitable for a family/mommy blog. So I'll just let you try to imagine how I actually talk about school. I probably need to give up profanity again for lent this year.

Six

Furthermore, and more also, as it were, went and had an actual hair cut. Didn't cry. I'll just let that sink in for a moment. Didn't cry. After confessing that I'd been whacking at it myself for weeks, and that I'd been to every single place in town, and then trying to describe what it was I hated most about my hair, since being unable to say things like, “I'd like it to be like this” or “I'd like it to be in this____ obvious and well known style” and then waving my hands and begging for mercy, this person, for whom I possess a telephone number and the encouragement to call again–I bet she's going to move town, I bet she's going to go away, how like her— cut my hair. She spiked it all over the back, which is what I was hoping she would do, although I didn't tell her I wanted it spiked, because I didn't want to her hate me, but she did it anyway, she just knew. As she was snipping and chatting told her I wanted to look “fun”. “I'm not fun” I said, “I'm a horrible crank. But I don't want anyone to know.” Which is why I'm revealing it on the Internet.

Seven

Alright alright, I'll get up and shove the children into their snow “Stuff”. With a grateful heart, cough.

Go read Jen!