• Very fruitful day. Lunch with Semi-Famous Blogger, then a great time in spiritual direction. I see a sparkly Dominican nun every month or so. The theme I seem to be working on in my life lately is assertiveness and authenticity. How to speak the truth in love. I sometimes overemphasize the love part and swallow the hard truth, then the truth comes out way too harshly somewhere else.
  
  
• The other realization is that I Need Sabbath Time Something Fierce.
  
  
• Also met with Uber-Committee tonight. The various teams met afterward and we have some really good energy there. As we left tonight a member of the team thanked me for the "good meeting." What a lovely thing for her to say at 9 p.m. after what was certainly a long day for her!
  
  
• The divine one now has 8 teeth.
  
  
• In related news, she bit she-who-is on the leg this morning. Left teeth marks. C cried, partly because it hurt, and partly (I speculate) because she recognizes that because M is a baby, there will be no retribution! No justice! I gave M a pointed "No no!" but that was mostly for C's benefit.
  
  
• I'm going to meet my idol this weekend. I'm nervous about it, since she's coming to our church at my invitation and I'm the one who's been talking her up for months. What if they don't like her? It's like hosting a wedding--one's own tastes are on display for the whole world to see, and judge.
  
  But I'm not going to let this bother me. I'm going to enjoy the ride.
  
  
• Do you ever get affirmed for something you did but that seemed so second-nature to you that you were surprised to get affirmed for it? (Bad sentence, sorry) That happened to me this week.
  
  A few weeks ago in worship we had a time for people to come forward and ask for prayers for healing. We do a simple prayer with laying on of hands and anointing with oil. There's nothing showy or magical about. Sometimes people feel better just being heard and touched and listened to. Anyway, I was at a prayer station with Parish Associate, and his wife came up first, on the arm of Sassy Church Saint. Parish Associate's wife has Alzheimer's at the age of 58 or so.
  
  As she came up, PA leaned to me and said, "Don't expect her to be able to tell you what to pray for." She knelt down and I knelt down with her, took her hands in mine and said, "L, can I pray for you?" She looked delighted and said yes. So I did. She went back to her seat and, according to Sassy Church Saint, said, "That's a really good thing to do."
  
  This past Tuesday, Parish Associate came to our session meeting to provide an orientation to healing ministry for our elders, and he shared that story and said, "That was a healing moment for us," with tears in his eyes.
  
  I was stunned and humbled because it was a moment of being affirmed not for what I was "doing" but because of who I was "being." That is, simply my non-anxious self. (Yes she's in there sometimes!)
  
  So as I think about what I wrote recently about how I let my stress somehow communicate concern, and wondering what a healthier alternative is, the alternative seems to be to share concern simply by being one's self.

G'night!