more along those same lines...

As I've mentioned before, I've been re-thinking the concept of friendship as it relates to the virtual community I have grown into over the past couple of years of blogging. Re-thinking and re-understanding have mostly been causes for excitement and joy in my life. Some folks find those activities stressful. I don't, don't ask me why.

I also realize that my Life is in transition again. I generally experience this after the fact, rarely as I go through the process, so to realize it mid-stream is quite wonderful. But transition in and of itself is not a gentle thing. My own community of sisters is experiencing its own transitional trauma as fewer of us are capable of handling the day-in-day-out responsibilities of running a convent. There are fewer of us to cook, clean, answer the door, and attend to the various jobs that were once spread over several sisters. With weariness comes irritation and shorter tempers. We do our best to curb the tendency to take it out on each other, but at some point something has to give. We have already moved up Compline to right after supper clean-up, so sisters can retire earlier. That's been helpful for all of us, not just the elderly. What else could we do to streamline our life? I personally feel we need to re-think the Office Book... make it easier to follow. If page two came after page one, maybe more of us could keep track of what day it is and what hymn we're supposed to sing. But revising fifty years of lovely tradition is no easy task, and since nobody has the time nor the energy to tackle it, we muddle through.

I digress. I am still thinking about the Feast of the Ascension, my irreverence for that holiest of days, (in that all I could muster was a sense of resentment and abandonment). I'd pass it off as pre-Memorial Day blues... anniversary of the weekend I found my mother in a coma from which she never recovered... but I figure it's more than that. And... it's not the kind of thing you open a conversation with..."Hey, I really don't care much for Christ's ascending. What do you think?"

Yet a bloggy friend posted a beautiful vision here and through her expression I could approach the event in a new way. What are friends for? Exactly.

Another friend recently posted about cleaning house and giving things up. He said "I think this is about giving up those things of the world that you have attachment to, but really have no purpose whatsoever except to waste your time and kill your soul." You can read the whole post here. How many things am I clinging to that waste my time and kill my soul?

I guess my point is simply this: the Holy Spirit (as much as I like to give that bird bad press) is alive and well on the blogosphere. The Word I need to hear is being posted every day and I'm reading those words and re-thinking, re-understanding. I'm in transition again... Hallelujah. I think.