Spiritual Practice

Things have been busy here. Classes are in full swing. Homeschooling is busy - sports; classes; and teaching Spanish, Language Arts and Math here at home. Formational stuff - group facilitation, workshops, paid work in RE, site work. All have conspired to keep me away from my computer and email except for urgent matters.

I put my attention full bore on school and formation for several weeks; the house languished, kids started acting out, husband is very quiet. Attention. I put it on one thing to the detriment of other things. It is a challenge to balance it. My brain is often at maximum capacity. My minister told me that she had a dream one night where she had to remember something and kept trying to get the File, Save to work on her brain, but it just wouldn't. Boy, do I resonate with that.

I have not been feeling good about my morning meditation walk for a while now. I've been distracted and I haven't been able to put my worldly concerns aside and focus on the here and now during that sacred time of day. I"ve been searching for something else and have been feeling called to prayer, but still have some hang-ups. I am trying without success to find information on using Buddhist prayer beads and some breathing meditations to help me focus. If anyone has any good resources, I'm all ears. In the absence of that, I made up my own.

Walk, walk, breathe in (God, please help me to be) breathe out (loving and in right relation to all). Over and over for several days. This morning for the first time in a long time, in the midst of a lot of inner turmoil and grief, I felt the presence of peace again. I breathed in the leafy, autumnal air, saw the wispy clouds in a blue sky, and my house off in the distance. I felt safe, and clear, and connected again. Just for a minute. But that was enough.