Something Interesting: I have to say, it's just a way to steal tomorrow.

It is a happy Sabbath. I sat and sipped coffee with my mom over conversation. Our morning conversations are seemingly reversed. We don't speak over coffee. We drink it with a few utterances thrown out into the air. The coffee is our priority and our comfort as we try to build the momentum to thrust ourselves into the day. The beauty of a Sunday is that it was made for rest, and we don't have to build up that momentum as quickly...or at all. I am cherishing the memory of this morning. It is my last Sunday morning with my family for a while.

It is strange to want to be two somewheres at the same time.

I believe people spend a lot of their lives in this state, and I am discontent knowing that I am not grateful to be just where I am all of the time. I want to be able to make merry wherever I am without the underlying longing to be elsewhere. I experienced this to a great degree while in Arkansas last week. Part of my longing to be elsewhere was due to the fact that I was missing my dad's birthday for the fourth year in a row. But there was something deeper there (something that I can't quite explain), pulling me out of the environment that I was in. I was frustrated and a bit confused to know that even though I wanted to be fully and wholeheartedly where I was, I was being drawn by some other desire. Some anxious desire deep within me. It is sometimes very difficult for me to discern God's will for my daily life. Sitting in the kitchen, having a glass of water at 2 a.m. in a house on the banks of Lake Hamilton, I contemplated whether I was being rebellious in my distraction or whether my insatiable desire to be elsewhere, overwhelming my desire to make the most of my placement, was just God preparing me or communicating to me about the days shortly to come.

In retrospect, I've found comfort in this: God has called me to love. And I showed the best love that I could last week. My own thoughts and desires could have taken away from that, but I tried very earnestly not to let them. Perhaps that counts for something.

Now, there are times for contemplation. And that is a blessing. That is something else that became a tangible reality for me last week. I suppose I've been talking of contemplation the whole while, but this is a different contemplation than the contemplation of placement and contentment in that placement. This is the contemplation of objects.

There was a sort of designated nap time throughout the house last week. That was something that I thought that I would cherish about each day. I was very often tired by noon and could easily have gone to sleep. But everyday, after everyone else was asleep, I was lying there, having the hardest time dozing off. I never have this problem. Every afternoon, while the house was asleep, I was up, having Emily time. I read scripture, listenened to music, drew, collected and studied things, and caught up on details of the lives of others, far away. Instead of feeling exhausted for not having taken a nap, I felt rejuvenated and ready to spend the afternoon "sitting on babies" as a friend calls it. I was blessed by that two hour contemplation period. My life constant is that I am very often blessed by contemplation...

Here is a song list for your contemplation:

- "I'll Be Your Lover, Too" by Van Morrison